


Hannah, Not the Wolf

by elisabeth_ist



Series: Hannah, Not the Wolf [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Champagne Can Be Dangerous, Don't Let Werewolves Eat Your Homework, Eidolons, F/M, Family Secrets, Found Family, Friendship, Growing Up, Hospitals, M/M, No Alphas or Pack Stuff Because Nope, Not-So-Urban Fantasy, Otherwise Known As Weird Ghosty Things, Sometimes Teenagers Make Very Stupid Decisions, The Law Isn't on Our Side, Too Much Time in Hospitals, Transformations Are Not Great, Weird Werewolf Cults, Werewolf Lore, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 117,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisabeth_ist/pseuds/elisabeth_ist
Summary: All Hannah wants is the truth. Unfortunately, truth is hard to come by when you were unceremoniously bitten by a werewolf at just eight years old.She would be happy enough to get on with her life - carefully sweeping a certain category of memories to the back of her mind - if everyone else would only let her. But they won't. There's special treatment and nosy questions and a terrible room in a hospital basement, and she is very much finished with all of it.As Hannah grows older, a tapestry of secrets emerges, from the reason her family moved hundreds of miles away to the mysterious creature that just might be haunting her mother. Alongside her two best friends - Harry, quiet and anxious, and Topher, obsessed with revenge - she uncovers the mysteries that have plagued her life since the day of the bite.***Original work. Inspired by werewolf folklore and fiction, smooshed together with the weird realities of coming of age in the early 2010s. Copyright © 2020 by elisabeth_ist (i.e., me).
Series: Hannah, Not the Wolf [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067285
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Hannah (I)

* * *

_Thy body permanent,  
_ _The body lurking there within thy body,  
_ _The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,  
_ _An image, an eidólon.  
_—Walt Whitman, “Eidólons”

_"Very few people want to hear the truth.”  
_—Lauren Bacall  
  


* * *

The last picture in Hannah’s mind of her family, in the days when it was whole and healthy and altogether _normal_ , was the afternoon they left for Mazaska Park. They packed themselves into a merry minivan of skinny-limbed, big-eared Cobham folk and drove off, only to have to drive right back again when Andrew casually observed they’d forgotten the sleeping bags.

They always forgot something. There were just too many of them.

Tom and Andrew were the oldest. Andrew was the taller, more serious-looking one, with hair that was chestnut colored and a little bit tufty. Tom stood about two inches shorter than his twin, and his hair was darker, and Hannah found it much harder to take him seriously, because he just had the wrong kind of face for it.

Hannah, who had just turned eight, was next in line. She had large brown eyes and long tangly hair the same color as Andrew’s, which she usually kept tucked back in a ponytail so she wouldn’t have to think about it. She had a thousand ideas in her head about this camping trip: roasting s’mores over an open fire, running through the woods, sneaking up on her brothers in the middle of the night and convincing them the campsite was haunted. The Cobhams hadn’t been anywhere interesting since Moe was born, and Hannah was determined to make the most of this time.

Moe was her youngest brother, two years younger than Gulliver, who was four. On the long ride to Mazaska Park, their car seats had been pushed up near the front, where they had fallen asleep in minutes, their faces squashed up against the windows. Hannah sat happily sandwiched between Tom and Andrew in the dark, warm back-of-the-back. A cozy, quiet refuge away from the babies and grown-ups.

In the car, Hannah and her siblings played Sweet and Sour and wrote Mad Libs and held their breaths every time they drove through a tunnel. Then night fell, and they took turns making up ghost stories, which mostly resulted in fits of muffled giggling that eventually lapsed into a drowsy, comfortable silence. Hannah lay back, watching the pinpricks of stars that became clearer and clearer with every mile that took them away from Milwaukee, and the moon that was midway through waxing.

That was how Hannah wished she could remember her family, later. Sleepily gliding through the night, warm and comfortable, cocooned together inside the surefire safety of the minivan.

***

It happened a few days later, when they were playing hide-and-seek.

Hannah, Andrew, and Tom had wedged themselves into a rusty old wheelbarrow they’d discovered behind an oak tree near their campsite. There wasn’t technically enough room inside for three, but they made it work by having Hannah sit halfway on Andrew’s lap and halfway on Tom’s. It wasn’t very comfortable, but they liked each other enough not to mind. While they waited, they passed around Tom’s metal water bottle, which he’d filled with hot chocolate from that evening’s campfire.

“I think we won,” said Tom, after a few minutes. “Should we go back, d’you think?”

“No way,” said Hannah. “They have to think we’ve disappeared. They have to worry for at least a _little_ bit.”

So they sat for a few minutes. Together they listened to the faraway cadence of their parents’ voices, the chorus of crickets, the steady pace of their own breathing. There was another sound, too – a low, mournful sound that Hannah couldn’t identify. It didn’t bother her very much. It made the shelter of the wheelbarrow feel cozier, safer, somehow.

Andrew seemed to have noticed the noise too, because he shifted uncomfortably from beneath her. “It’s been long enough. You know Mom. She’ll think we were eaten by bears or something.”

“I like bears,” Hannah protested, but Andrew wasn’t moved. He pulled himself upward, shunting Hannah’s weight onto Tom, who winced and clambered onto the grass. Hannah fell forward onto her knees, and she was just getting up when she heard the strange noise again. It was lower than before.

And it was closer. A lot closer.

Hannah turned, and her heart stopped.

There was a _thing_ crouched at the foot of the oak tree. It had a tail – that was the first thing she noticed – a sparse, scrubby tail whipping back and forth with the summer breeze, despite the utter stillness of the rest of its body. Its eyes gave off a funny, translucent glow, and its mouth was open: Hannah could see its teeth, bone gray and glinting in the moonlight. They were almost as long as her little finger, and sharp as a dagger.

“It’s a wolf,” Hannah whispered.

The wolf turned at the sound. For a split second, it locked eyes with her. Its gaze was cold and jaundiced yellow. There was no emotion Hannah recognized behind its dilated pupils.

She knew that wolves weren’t supposed to be dangerous. Not so long as you left them alone. But…

There was, she realized, something _wrong_ with it.

The thing to do now, she knew, was to move slowly and hope that it went back to wherever it had come from. But her limbs seemed to be locked; her breath had caught in her chest. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the shadowed forms of Tom and Andrew, equally helpless on either side of her. Hannah could do nothing but watch as the wolf’s eyes flickered between the three of them.

As if it were trying to make up its mind.

“Do you think…” muttered Hannah. “Should we run?”

Tom and Andrew looked uncertainly at each other. In the time that it took for their eyes to meet, the wolf moved.

Its golden eyes took aim – it jumped –

There was no time to react. One of Hannah’s feet stumbled into other as the wolf sprang towards her, drool gleaming down its muzzle, teeth flashing –

She screamed –

It buried its teeth in her left calf.

A searing pain shot into her skin and prickled like flame-tipped needles where the wolf’s teeth had entered her skin. For a few seconds, the world went dark and wavy –

– and then there was Tom, with nothing but his water bottle to use as a weapon, bashing at the place where those lethal-looking fangs still held fast to Hannah’s skin. The wolf began to roar in protest – Hannah shoved at it, even while its teeth dug deeper into her leg – it made a scraping, snarling noise – it bit her a second time, harder; so hard that it took her breath away –

“GET HELP!” shouted Tom, who seemed far from her, even though he was right there. Andrew blinked as if concussed; he sprinted towards the campsite, shouting for their parents, for other campers, for someone, anyone –

Tom kept slamming the water bottle into the wolf’s head, and Hannah tried to help, though she was now in too much pain to do anything but push at it slightly. They were both crying now –Hannah hadn’t even realized she’d started – but the wolf looked weaker – it slumped – and somehow – through sheer fury; terror; fear? – in one final, breath-sapping shove – they succeeded together in throwing the wolf off her.

It went for Tom then, and for a moment Hannah was convinced it was going to bite his leg off. But their efforts seemed to have weakened it – or perhaps it had been sick to begin with – because it fell, yowling in fury. When Tom smacked its head once more with the water bottle, it lay still.

Hannah stared at it, tears of pain running down her cheeks.

“It’s not dead,” said Tom shakily.

“No. It’s not.”

Hannah noticed that her teeth had begun to chatter. She was freezing, despite the sweatshirt she was wearing. She would have wrapped her arms around her knees, but she didn’t want to move.

“Tom – my leg – it hurts,” she said, because she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to explain.

Tom crawled over to the place where she had stretched her leg out, surrounded by a growing stream of dark blood. Covering his hands with the sleeves of his hoodie, Tom pulled up the fabric of her jeans. Hannah took one glance and nearly vomited.

The things those teeth had done to her skin – the gashes that those knife-bright points had made – Hannah hadn’t known that wounds like that were possible. She could see the pale outline of her calf bone beneath a jagged flap of skin. She remembered hearing somewhere that the worst injuries hurt the least at first; she wondered who had thought up such a lie. Nothing had ever hurt so much in her life.

She looked away, because she had to.

“They’re coming,” said Tom breathlessly. “Mom and Dad. Andrew’s gone to get them. You’ll probably need stitches – you’ll need to go to the emergency room.”

“Yeah,” said Hannah, feeling slightly more hopeful. “Like – like that time when you got bit by that bat. When you had to have those shots. But I don’t know if – I don’t know whether – Tom, I feel really weird –”

Her teeth were chattering harder now. She could see herself shaking, but she couldn’t feel it. She closed her eyes, because everything was spinning.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that for. The next thing she heard was pounding feet and panting breaths; a cry, and then a sigh of relief. She opened her eyes and made out the glow of a lantern, illuminating her parents, who ran to her and Tom, their faces pale in the moonlight.

“Tom,” barked her father. “The wolf. It’s over here?”

“Yeah,” said Tom. “It bit Hannah. But I knocked it out.”

Hannah’s father moved over to the wolf, glanced down at it, and gave her mother a small, curt nod. There were a few seconds of silence. Then her mother gave a small moan and collapsed onto her knees.

Hannah had never heard her make a sound like that before.

“Stitches,” said Tom helpfully. “I think she needs stitches.”

“I’m cold,” Hannah whispered.

“Tom!” said their father. “Tom, this is incredibly important. It bit her? It didn’t just scratch her?”

“Yeah. On the leg. Twice.”

“Okay. Okay.” Her father was talking at a strange, feverish pace. “And you? Did it bite you?”

“Almost. But it didn’t.”

“Good. Stay right there. Don’t move.”

Hannah put her head in her mother’s lap. She listened as her father got out his cell phone, dialed, and spoke in that same choppy way into the receiver. A couple of times, his voice went muffled, and Hannah knew he was cupping his hand over the phone, trying to prevent the rest of them from overhearing.

“Yes,” said her father at the end. “Thanks. Thank you so much.”

Hannah peered upwards and saw him turning to her mother. “They said… they’ll be here in twenty minutes. They can stop the bleeding in the ambulance. They were confident about that. But as for the bites…”

“They must be able to do _something_ ,” said her mother. “It’s only been a few minutes. Surely that can’t be enough time to—”

“They said the blood starts to absorb the poison within seconds. They’ll try – they promised they’ll do everything they can, but –”

Her mother’s lap suddenly went a little shaky. “She’s going to be _fine,”_ she hissed. “Of course they’d tell us to expect the worst. I’m sure it’s _policy_ –”

“I’m going to call the park police,” said Hannah’s father. “That thing. Something needs to be done.”

“Yes,” said her mother. “Yes. And we’ll wait here, and we’ll – I guess we’ll –”

“I’m freezing,” murmured Hannah.

A few minutes later, the ambulance came, and they lifted her away.

It was there, asleep on the stretcher, her hand clasped in her mother’s, that the poison made a home in Hannah’s blood, and she first began to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone asks -- yes, Gulliver and Moe's names are weird compared to the rest of the family's. Gulliver is actually James Gulliver, and he ended up going by his middle name because he was a "traveler" as a baby (crawled anywhere and everywhere). Moe's real name is Maxwell, same as his father's, but he had to have a nickname, so that they aren't both called Max.


	2. A Wolf with Poisonous Teeth

There were three nurses on Hannah’s hospital ward. Aina was the oldest, with thready gray hair and a sour expression. Leah and Erin were plump and thin respectively, but could otherwise have passed for twins, with expensive-looking blonde haircuts and eyes that narrowed often.

The nurses were there when Dr. Trapp wasn’t. Hannah liked Dr. Trapp even less than she liked them, but since he was only there an hour or two out of every day, it was the nurses she had to keep an eye on.

She had been in the hospital for one long, terrible week. The first few days were hazy in her memory, but once she was able to sit up and keep food down, she spent almost all of her time trying to reason with her parents. Her mother refused to do anything but stroke Hannah’s hair and cry, and her father drifted in and out of the room with a comatose expression on his face, saying little.

It was only a wolf bite. 

“Yes, but it isn’t a normal wolf bite, either,” said her father.

“It was a wolf,” said Hannah, frowning. “I saw it. Anyway, I’m not even sick anymore. I haven’t thrown up in three days, and I don’t feel dizzy, and I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry, Han. You can’t. Not yet.”

Hannah stared at him, hoping he was joking. But neither of her parents had made a joke in days.

 _“Why?”_ she wailed – and to her horror, started to cry.

Then there was a lot of hugging and fussing and plaintive “oh _Hannahs_ ”, but still no explanation until she burrowed under her covers and refused to come out until somebody promised to tell her something. Anything.

“Fine,” said her father wearily. “You want to know why you have to stay? There’s a law. The wolf that bit you was – is – dangerous. It had poisonous teeth. And when a wolf like that bites somebody, they have to stay in the hospital for a long time. For four weeks.”

Hannah stared harder. “That’s a whole _month.”_

“Yes. So you have three more weeks to go. But you’ll have to come back sometimes, too. There’s another law about that. Because –”

“Max,” said Hannah’s mother, looking incredulous. “Dr. Trapp said –”

“I’m only giving her the basic outline,” said her father. “Nothing more. Hannah, you’re right. It doesn’t make sense. But it’s still the law, and that means we have to follow it.”

“Just three more weeks,” said Hannah’s mother soothingly. “That’s not so long, is it?”

“It’s _forever,”_ said Hannah.

She dove under the covers before they could see that she was crying again.

***

The next two weeks didn’t do much to improve matters. The nurses barked at Hannah to eat disgusting meals with stale odors and greasy textures, and they made her sleep much more often than her body wanted to. Dr. Trapp, a balding man with tiny glasses and remarkably long eyelashes, stopped by every afternoon, scribbling notes he wouldn’t let Hannah see, asking her strange questions.

“Would you say that you’ve been feeling unusually bloodthirsty lately?”

“Have you done anything dangerous without realizing you were doing it?”

“Some patients report unusual dreams at this stage. Have you had any unusual dreams, Hannah?”

The answers, of course, were no, no, and only if you counted the daydream she’d developed about punching each of the nurses in the nose, but Hannah didn’t tell him that. She just shook her head.

Dr. Trapp always looked disappointed.

There was only one bright spot to being in the hospital, and that was that Tom and Andrew were allowed to visit after the first week. Gulliver and Moe were still too young, but Hannah didn’t mind. Having even two people around who treated her just as they always had made things exponentially better.

“You’re the center of attention even at home, you know,” said Tom, finishing a chocolate bar he’d bought from the vending machine down the hall. “It’s all weird and quiet, like someone’s died or something. And people keep _calling_ , and asking how you’re doing, and Mom keeps going upstairs and having all these _private_ conversations.”

“Which aren’t as private as Mom thinks they are,” said Andrew.

“Well, I might have picked up the receiver a couple of times,” said Tom, without looking guilty in the slightest. “But I mean – private conversations? In our house? Really? Anyway, they also talked for a long time about the wolf that bit you and where it is now and stuff. I don’t know why they care, but they definitely do. Mom even cried.”

Hannah groaned. “She’s _always_ crying. Where is it now, anyway?”

“Jail,” said Tom. “I thought jail was only for people, but I guess it was a really dangerous wolf. The park police took it there.”

“Why wouldn’t they kill it?” said Hannah. She scowled. “I think they should kill it. Especially if it’s so dangerous that it goes around biting people.”

“Animal rights, I bet,” said Andrew. “Maybe it’s endangered.”

“Probably,” Tom agreed. “So then, after that, they kept saying – well, I thought it was weird.”

“What?”

“They could’ve meant anything,” said Andrew, with a sidelong look at his twin.

 _“What?”_ demanded Hannah.

“They kept saying,” said Tom, through another mouthful of chocolate, “that you didn’t _know_ something. Aunt Celeste was all like, ‘have you told her?’ and then Mom got all strange and was like, ‘no, not yet’. Like there’s a secret.”

“I hate secrets,” said Hannah. “Keep listening, Tom. Mom has to let something slip before too long.”

But she never did.

***

When Hannah had been in the hospital for exactly three weeks and four days, she woke up with a peculiar tingling behind her eyes.

She opened them, and the world looked different.

At first she thought there must be some kind of film under her eyelids – the kind that had made them stick together when she’d had pinkeye a few years before. But blinking and rubbing them didn’t help. The world was still – _strange._ Not right.

It took Hannah a few seconds to realize it was because of the colors. In the night, all the reds and oranges and purples in the world around her had vanished, leaving streaky browns and blues and yellows in their place.

She put on her slippers and tiptoed out into the hallway, thinking that she would ask the nurse on duty whether this was normal for a wolf bite. She didn’t especially _want_ to talk to the nurses, who still seemed to dislike her, but she didn’t know what else to do. She definitely didn’t want to ask her parents. Her mother would probably cry again.

Hannah went to the end of the hallway, where she knew the nurses’ station was located. She was only steps away when she noticed the sounds of three distinct voices chiming together.

Aina, Erin, and Leah – she was sure of it. She couldn’t recall a single time when all three had been on duty at the same time.

Hannah sat down behind the wall, where they couldn’t see her. She listened harder and was happily surprised when she discovered she could make out every word they were saying. She hadn’t realized her hearing was so good.

“…the papers came yesterday,” said Aina’s voice. “I’ve signed them, and so has Dr. Trapp, so all we need is a signature from Lervis. Remind me to give them a call this afternoon.”

“How’s that going to work, anyway?” said Leah, a little nervously. “Lervis, I mean? Who’s going to take her there?”

“Dr. Trapp,” said Aina. There was an audible tone of relief in her voice. “He says he’s _excited_ about it. Says he’s never worked with one this young before. Wants to see if her symptoms tally with the olders.”

“For his award-winning paper, right?” said Erin. “That man.”

“At least he’s dedicated,” said Aina. “He thinks he’ll be able to ID her Type after only two months, which is a lot more than most places can do. With any luck, she’ll be gone by September. Out of our hair.”

Hannah drew away from the door, her heart pounding. They were talking about her – she was sure of it. She had no idea what “Lervis” was, or what Aina meant by her “Type”, but she had heard Dr. Trapp mention over and over again how excited he was to be “studying a victim of her age”, and he asked about her “symptoms” every single day. The idea that Dr. Trapp might want to _take_ her somewhere made her stomach twist into knots.

But the thing that really worried Hannah was the way Aina had so casually suggested that she would “be gone by September”. Her father had sworn that she’d be allowed to leave the hospital in just a week. Could he be lying? Could the nurses be plotting to keep her at the hospital for an extra two months? And if so, why would they want her?

Hannah went back to her room, feeling shaky and confused.

She decided not to ask anyone else about her eyes, although the missing colors didn’t return. She told herself it was just a weird form of pinkeye, that it would be gone soon. However, she did mention the things she’d overheard to Tom and Andrew. Both of them were just as mystified as she was, although they assured her that the nurses couldn’t have meant what she thought.

“You’re definitely coming home in a week,” said Andrew. “Mom and Dad promised. Aunt Marissa’s making waffles.”

Hannah finally relaxed. If Andrew said it, it must be true.

All three nurses stayed on duty over the course of the next few days. They seemed to like Hannah even less than usual, because they stopped bringing her bacon and eggs for breakfast and started giving her slimy dollops of oatmeal instead.

“I hate oatmeal,” said Hannah, recoiling. “And it hates me.”

“I wasn’t aware that oatmeal had feelings,” said Aina crisply. “It’s this or nothing, I’m afraid. You’re on a special diet this week. No meat until Saturday. Doctor’s orders.”

“I can’t even have a tiny little piece of bacon?” said Hannah. “I’m not even sick anymore!”

“Are you having cravings?” Aina raised her eyebrows.

 _“No,”_ said Hannah. “But I’m not going to eat this. Not in a million years.”

“Starve, then. I have paperwork to fill out.” Aina swept out of the room without giving Hannah so much as a backwards glance.

Then something odd happened. The image of the bacon they’d been arguing about seemed to grow in Hannah’s mind’s eye, awakening something inside her. She didn’t even _like_ the bacon that the hospital served – it was more rubbery than the eggs it came with – but the mere thought of the savory way it smelled suddenly made Hannah’s mouth water. She supposed it was the contrast to the watery bowl of oatmeal sitting in front of her. Oatmeal would make anything sound good.

She was in a very bad mood by the time Dr. Trapp arrived. He took one look at her and beamed.

“Oh, you’re feeling it now, aren’t you? Let’s take a look.”

He stayed much longer than he normally did. Aside from his usual questions, he also performed several tests. One of them involved Hannah looking at a chart with lots of bright, interlocking circles, and telling him what colors they were. Another involved sniffing a large variety of foods in bags and naming them based on the smell. The final test involved Dr. Trapp standing in a corner of the room and muttering things under his breath. Hannah, standing on the other side of the room, was supposed to tell him what he’d said.

“Well, well!” said Dr. Trapp at the end. “It looks like you’ve got all the typical symptoms. Deuteranopia… increased sense of smell… _phenomenal_ hearing… and Aina tells me you’ve been craving meat? You’re a little bomb ready to go off, aren’t you?”

He smiled jovially. Hannah frowned. She had no idea what “deuteranopia” was, but she guessed it had something to do with the color test, which probably meant that Dr. Trapp had figured out what had happened to her eyes.

“I haven’t been craving anything,” she snapped. “I just want them to stop giving me oatmeal.”

“All in good time, little lady,” said Dr. Trapp. He gave her a wink that made her queasy. Then he wrote something down in his notebook and finally – _finally_ – left the room.

***

Several mornings later, Tom, Andrew, and Hannah’s parents came to visit. This was unusual, especially since it was a Friday – Hannah’s father was supposed to be at work, and her mother had Moe and Gulliver to look after. Still, there they were. Hannah noticed that her parents’ faces seemed more drawn than the last time she’d seen them. Tom and Andrew lagged a few feet behind them, looking tired and put out.

“Hi,” said Hannah, sliding off her bed to greet them. A funny pain rippled through her temples; she rubbed her head and winced. It would be all she needed to get the flu during her last few days here.

“Good morning,” said her parents in unexpected unison.

She put her hands on her hips.

“You guys are acting weird,” she said. “Are you okay?”

All four members of her family nodded quickly.

“We just – we love you, Hannah,” said her mother, in a strained voice. “We want to make sure you know that.”

“Okay.”

“You do know that, right?”

There were tears at the corners of her mother’s eyes. Hannah stared.

“Yes.”

“How are you feeling?” said her father.

“Fine.”

The crease in his forehead got deeper. “You don’t feel sick? No headache? Nothing hurts?”

Hannah thought about her head and the way it had begun to throb. She thought about Dr. Trapp and the things he’d asked her, and about the way Aina had told him she was craving meat. ( _Meat._ In the last couple of days, Hannah had started dreaming about it during the more tedious moments alone in her room. Great slabs of steak and salty ham sandwiches and steaming bowls of her mother’s chicken curry…)

“I said I’m _fine_.” She strolled up to her father and slapped him on the shoulder, which was the highest part of his body that she could reach. “Be _normal_. I get to leave in three days, so you should be happy.”

“Sorry,” said her father. He managed a small smile. “Long week, that’s all. Can we sit down? Have a little family time?”

“Okay,” said Hannah cautiously.

She peered again at Tom and Andrew. Andrew was looking at the floor, where his fingers were lightly tapping up and down, making soft clicking noises against the tile. Tom was watching Hannah. When he saw that she had noticed him, he pressed his lips together.

“Hannah,” said her father slowly. “This might be a different kind of day for you.”

Her mother gave a forceful nod, opened her mouth, and then shut it abruptly.

Her father took her mother’s hand and held it. “We wanted to let you know – together, as a family –that if things are – maybe not the way you expect them to be – if they’re a little harder than you expect them to be – that we love you very much and we – we don’t want you to be afraid. Because you’re safe.” He paused. “You’re safe and you always will be. Can you remember that?”

Hannah bounced her knees from side to side and looked at each member of her family in turn. Each of them had their most serious face on – even Tom, whose serious face looked like he was trying to swallow his tongue.

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess.”

“Good,” said her father. “We want you to know that we’ll be thinking of you. For the rest of the day, and the night, too.” He looked down. “You really aren’t in any pain?”

“No.”

She was sure that if she mentioned her headache, something terrible would happen.

It was only after they left that Hannah realized neither of her brothers had said a word to her. Not once, not the entire time they’d been there. Her parents were one thing – but for Andrew to be acting like this… and especially, especially Tom…

Whatever her parents had been thinking, Hannah thought, Tom and Andrew were thinking it too. And they were keeping it from her. Even though they knew how she felt about secrets. Even though Tom had promised to help her find out what the secret was.

She didn’t know what to do, so she stomped around the room until the nurses yelled at her to stop.

***

By five o’clock, her headache had grown much worse. Hannah wanted to get into bed, but she knew instinctively that it was what the nurses expected. They had wanted her to be sick, these last few days. She would have had to be an idiot not to have noticed them watching for it.

Eventually, they came in with her dinner. By this point, Hannah was so annoyed that she didn’t bother asking why all of them needed to deliver her meatless lasagna together. Hannah picked at it with her fork. It resembled the kind of muck she imagined you’d see in a swamp.

“You have to eat all of that,” said Aina. “You’ll be hungry later if you don’t. And if I were you, I would _not_ want to be hungry later.”

“I won’t be hungry later and I’m not hungry now.”

“You will be hungry later. Eat it.”

The three nurses sat and watched until Hannah dug out a hunk of plasticky cheese and put it in her mouth. She gagged as she swallowed.

Meanwhile, Aina’s phone buzzed, and all three nurses jumped.

“He’s coming,” said Leah softly. “We’d better get her ready.”

Hannah put down the lasagna bowl and glared. The pain in her head escalated.

“Get me ready for _what_?”

“Nothing to worry about,” said Erin. “It’s – Dr. Trapp is coming to see you. The two of you are going on a little trip.”

Hannah’s heart started to pound. The conversation she’d overheard – the things the nurses had discussed –

_Lervis… who’s going to take her there… with any luck, she’ll be gone by September…_

“I’m not going.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aina. “It’s nothing bad. He has a treat for you, that’s all. A surprise. You’ll see.”

Hannah’s head hurt so much that it took her a minute to notice when Dr. Trapp entered the room.

“So,” he boomed, scribbling in his notepad. “Is the little lady ready?”

“All set,” said Erin, giving Hannah a small shove. She stumbled and nearly fell into Dr. Trapp, but he didn’t seem to mind; he merely took her hand and began to lead her out of the room. Hannah thought about resisting – Dr. Trapp was the last person in the world she wanted to hold hands with. But she could tell by the strength with which he gripped her arm that she had no choice. Her head hurt too much to make a fuss, and she knew he was much stronger than she was.

He took her into an elevator and then out through the parking lot, where an ambulance was waiting for them. Hannah climbed meekly inside, wondering in spite of herself what DEFIBRILLATOR was supposed to mean. Dr. Trapp sat beside her, scribbling in his notebook at a feverish pace.

It took half an hour to get wherever they were going. In that time, the pain in Hannah’s head increased to a blurry kind of awful that made her clutch at it every time the ambulance hit a bump. She glanced at Dr. Trapp a few times, to see if he’d noticed.

He had. He was writing it down.

Eventually, the ambulance drove into a tiny parking lot behind an ugly concrete building. It was alone on its street: there were no other buildings around. Instead there was a scrubby brown field and an endless stretch of road.

Dr. Trapp took Hannah’s hand again and helped her out into the balmy summer air. She shivered.

He showed her to the door of the building and gave her a gentle push inside, thrusting them into what looked like a hotel lobby. There were uncomfortable-looking couches in varying shades of brown, a few gossip magazines, and a coffee-stained table containing a bowl of ancient-looking apples.

Dr. Trapp muttered a few words to a woman in a heavy navy blue uniform. She frowned at him.

“There are only forty minutes to go, you know,” she said, rather coldly. “Punctuality is of the essence, here.”

“Sorry,” said Dr. Trapp, although he didn’t look sorry at all. “She had some fascinating latent symptoms. First time, and all that.” He gestured to Hannah. “Are you ready for your surprise?”

She had forgotten there was supposed to be a surprise.

“Room Fourteen, right at the front,” said the uniformed woman, and she ushered Hannah and Dr. Trapp forward. They moved through a maze of dark hallways until they reached a stout metal door. The woman pulled a key from a lanyard around her neck, twisted it in the keyhole, and swung the door open. Then she bent down, so that she was close to Hannah’s height.

“I’m going to give you a present,” she said.

She took Hannah’s right arm and snapped a metal band inset with a glowing red light around her wrist. Hannah peered at it, puzzled; she didn’t think it was very pretty.

“Is it my surprise?” she said.

“Only the first part. If you can be a good girl and stay in this room right here, I’ll come back with the rest of it. It might take a while to get ready, though, so you’ll have to be patient.”

Hannah looked at her. Her eyes seemed bigger than normal people’s. She wanted so badly to be able to _think_ , but everything upwards of her shoulders ached and her heart seemed to be beating at five times its normal rate and she didn’t understand why Dr. Trapp had taken her here.

“I don’t feel good,” Hannah admitted at last. “I think maybe I should go back to the hospital.”

“Well, we’ll get you back there real soon,” said the woman. “Now go on in. It’ll only be a few minutes, I promise. That’s a good girl.”

Dr. Trapp gave her an encouraging smile. Hannah stepped through the door.

The room was small and bare. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but the glow it emitted was so faint that the room was completely in shadow. The floor was gray concrete, and although it was clean, it was also covered in angry-looking scratch marks. The walls were even worse: the paint had been chipped off in dramatic, uneven patches, and a sizable chunk had been gouged out of one of them. In the back, there was a small pillow beneath a folded gray blanket. There was no furniture.

Hannah looked uncertainly at the woman and Dr. Trapp, and clutched the side of her head.

“Go,” said the woman, gesturing toward the blanket. “Make yourself comfortable. Your surprise is on the way.”

Usually, Hannah would have asked question after question until she was sure she knew what was going on. What kind of surprise could they possibly give her in a place like this? Why didn’t they seem to care that she was sick? On any other day, Hannah thought, she’d be furious. She’d have yelled at them. She’d have _made_ them explain.

But her head hurt so badly, and she hadn’t sat down since the ambulance.

She shuffled over to the corner, pulled the blanket over herself, and curled up against the pillow. It smelled musty, but at least it was soft.

“Back in two ticks,” said the woman, and she closed the door.

Hannah spent the next few minutes lying on the floor, eyes closed, trying to gather her thoughts. Despite her head and her exhaustion and the way the room kept spinning, she could not shake the feeling that she had been incredibly stupid about something.

 _This_ , she thought suddenly.

Her shadow stretched onto the opposite wall, enormous and eerie against the concrete. Her conversation with her family, hours before, drifted into her head, and then she knew.

There was never going to be a surprise.

She’d been tricked; she knew it as surely as she knew her own name. She was here – wherever _here_ was – because Dr. Trapp had decided she should be; because the nurses had wanted him to take her away; because they hated her, for reasons Hannah might now never learn. They’d planned it for weeks. How had she not _known_ , from the conversation she’d overheard? Her parents had known. Tom and Andrew had known today, even if they hadn’t before. Everyone had known, except her.

Hannah’s breathing intensified; she gnawed at her knuckles and forced herself up. Her legs protested at being stood on, but she made herself get to the door. She’d have to run for it. It would be hard, since she felt so awful, but she could do it – she was sure she could. The uniformed woman surely wouldn’t be able to catch her. Hannah could even beat Tom at races, sometimes.

She took a deep breath and pulled the doorknob –

It was locked.

Panic shot into Hannah’s chest. She kicked at the door with all her might, yelling as loudly as she could, screaming Dr. Trapp’s name, and then the nurses’, just in case. She hurled herself into it, in case she was strong enough to break it down. She knew she wasn’t. She could feel herself growing weaker by the second.

Eventually she curled back into her corner and cried and cried and held her head as the room tilted on its axis.

They couldn’t leave her here forever. But they might keep her locked up until September, like the nurses had said. Hannah imagined what that would be like, to be confined to this room, this darkness, far away from her parents and brothers and everything she loved. Her heart beat faster. Her head kept aching. Her limbs – her limbs started twitching, started _burning_ deep inside her bones –

She suddenly realized that she was hungrier than she had ever been in her life. During her first few days in the hospital she couldn’t stand the sight of food. Now all she wanted was a hamburger. The kind where they put two beef patties inside instead of one. The kind that made juice dribble down her chin when she bit into it.

 _“Please_ ,” she begged the room, in full knowledge that no one could hear her. _“Please –_ somebody – _help me –”_

Her body began to move of its own accord. It hurt and it changed and it twisted and then she found she couldn’t say anything at all.

Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Dr. Trapp publishes a lot of papers with dubious peer review processes. I imagine at some point, he's forced to retract them. I imagine he deserves it.


	3. A Different Kind of Innocence

Dawn broke. Hannah’s eyes opened.

She was lying flat on her back on the cold concrete floor. Her mind felt raw and exhausted, as though it had been in the grips of some complex nightmare for hours. Hannah closed her eyes again and tried to remember what the nightmare had been like. She couldn’t. Everything hurt.

She tried to sit up, but slumped backward almost immediately. She looked down and noticed fresh bruises all up and down her arms. She couldn’t see her legs from where she was lying, but she was sure that they were the same.

Her mind raced. What had they _done_ to her? Had they thrown her against a wall?

A series of clanging noises from outside the room sent painful vibrations into Hannah’s skull. Impossibly loud voices followed.

“He couldn’t get any slower, could he?”

“It’s like they don’t realize we don’t have all day –”

“Hurry the hell _up_!”

Booted footsteps clomped down the hall. The voices grew even louder.

“That one’s the kid, isn’t it? The one with the doc waiting outside?”

“God, yeah. He won’t shut up. Like we don’t have enough to deal with.”

“Better spring her. It’ll get rid of him, too, won’t it?”

There was a scraping at the door like fingernails on a chalkboard; Hannah winced and covered her face with her hands. Through the cracks in her fingers, she made out the forms of two men, who were wearing the same blue uniform as the woman from the night before.

“Get up,” ordered the one closest to her. “Let’s go.”

Hannah tried, once again, to lift herself from the ground, but she didn’t get far. She closed her fingers, so that all she could see was darkness.

“Every single time,” said the second man, sounding disgusted. “Got to be another Three.”

His deafening boots shook their way into the room, and then Hannah was hauled off the floor and slung over his shoulder. It was a quick movement, but every cell in her body screamed in protest. His companion reached for her hand, found the bracelet she’d been given the night before, and snatched it off.

The second man then dropped her into what she suspected was a wheelchair. Still covering her face, Hannah separated her fingers enough to watch as they moved her back through the jumble of hallways and into the lobby, where Dr. Trapp was waiting for her.

“And _there she is!”_ he boomed, smiling broadly. “Someone’s not feeling very well this morning, is she?”

His voice was cheerful – giddy, even. If Hannah had been able to muster the energy, she would have hit him.

“We think she’s a Type Three, sir,” said the taller man, in a much more respectful tone than the one he had used with Hannah. “See, she’s got bruises on her legs.”

“Well, she’s not a Type One; that much is clear.” Dr. Trapp chuckled to himself, as if responding to a joke no one else had heard. “But I’ll be the judge of that. Type Twos can be deceptive, you know, and I don’t want to type her too early. All should be clear in another month. Who knows; you might get to keep her.”

He laughed again, and wheeled Hannah outside. The morning sun bit at her eyelids and the gaseous smell of the cars in the parking lot curdled her stomach. She was loaded into an ambulance and taken back to the hospital.

She must have fallen asleep for real somewhere along the way, because the next time she woke, she was in her hospital bed.

Her parents were beside her. Their eyes were round and wide.

“They poisoned me,” said Hannah in a small voice. “They locked me up and left me alone and then they poisoned me.”

She knew she was going to cry, but for once, she didn’t care. Her mother was there in an instant, blotting her tears with a tissue. Her father took one of her hands.

“They didn’t poison you,” he said. “But _shh_. Rest now. We’re very proud of you.”

That didn’t make any sense, and Hannah didn’t like it. She tried again to sit up, and this time she was successful. Her back only hurt about half as much as it had before. Sleeping must have helped.

“No,” she said. “They _poisoned_ me.”

“Nobody poisoned you.”

“Then what did they _do?”_

Now that she was back at the hospital, it was as though the cold fear from the night before had been placed over an open flame, transforming it into a fierce, boiling rage, of a kind Hannah had never felt before.

Her parents gave each other another of the uneasy looks that Hannah had gotten used to by now.

“I still don’t know that she’s old enough,” her mother murmured. “Dr. Trapp said –”

“And I agree with him,” her father said wearily, “that we should wait on some things. But not this.”

Her mother’s eyes clouded again. “We can’t undo this, Max. She can’t un-know. Her innocence –”

It had been the wrong thing to say. Hot tears scalded Hannah’s face again.

 _“You have to tell me!”_ she shouted, and her head throbbed. _“I_ got bit by the stupid wolf – _I’m_ the one that Dr. Trapp tried to kill – and I’m not _innocent!_ I stole Tom’s allowance once – and I told Gulliver that if he ate too many gummy worms he’d have a city of them living in his stomach, and they’d be able to make him do things, and he believed me –”

“A different kind of innocence, Han.” Her mother bit her lip, and then nodded. “I – okay. I might slip down to the coffee shop.”

“Catch up with you later,” said her father soberly.

Her mother left the room, her head bowed.

“It’s hard for her,” her father explained.

“It’s hard for me _too_.”

“I know. But it’s hard for her – and for me – in a different way. In a way that I hope you never find out for yourself.”

“I thought you were going to tell me.”

“Yes.” Her father stared into space, away from his daughter. “Do you remember when I told you that the wolf that bit you had poisonous teeth?”

“Yeah.”

“So I guess in a way, you’re right. You were poisoned. But not by Dr. Trapp. By the wolf. Its teeth – the poison – it’s a special kind of poison.” He exhaled sharply. “You… learned about the different phases of the moon in Mrs. Solberg’s class last year, right?”

“Yes, but that has nothing to _do_ with this. You’re supposed to be _telling_ me, you’re not supposed to be changing the subject –”

“I’m not changing the subject. It was a full moon the night the wolf bit you. It was also a full moon last night.”

_“So?”_

“So…” Her father closed his eyes briefly. “Maybe I’m doing this wrong. Look: when the wolf bit you, it gave you a disease – a sickness – through the poison in its teeth. A sickness that the wolf had, too.”

“It did look sick,” Hannah admitted.

“It’s called – it’s a long word – it’s called ‘lycanthropy’. Another word that people sometimes use for people who have lycanthropy is ‘werewolf’. But Mom and I don’t like that one.”

“Why not?”

“Because – I don’t know, Hannah, it reminds us of –” He grimaced. “What you need to know is that it’s going to happen again. Having lycanthropy is – you’re going to have to understand that – it’s not going to be easy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said her father. “When a person gets bitten by a wolf with poisonous teeth… it means that once a month – whenever the moon is full – that person’s body is going to change into a wolf’s body for a few hours. It’s probably going to hurt, and the person won’t be able to stop it from happening. They might not even remember it, while it’s going on.”

He shook his head slightly, as though Hannah’s headache had been contagious. “And that means… that you’re going to have to be brave. You’re going to have to be really brave, once a month, from now on.” He hesitated. “ _Do_ you remember any of last night? Anything about what it felt like, or what you did after it happened?”

Hannah tracked her father’s anxious, flickering eyes, as though her own eyes had gotten stuck that way.

“I know it sounds… strange. Kids don’t usually hear about lycanthropy until they’re much older than you are. Remember how Tom and Andrew took Supernatural Smarts in school? They won’t have talked about lycanthropy yet, but their class will learn about it in another year or two.”

Hannah tried to swallow. Her throat didn’t seem to want to.

“But I don’t _want_ to turn into a wolf.”

Her father put his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. It was the kind of hug that had always made Hannah feel safe, like nothing in the world could touch her unless her father let it.

It didn’t, this time.

“Maybe someday you won’t have to. But until then, we’re all going to have to be brave –”

“I don’t want to be brave, either!”

She was crying again. This time she tried to stop herself. It wasn’t _right_ to cry, not when her father looked the way that he did – but her body wouldn’t listen.

“Nobody wants to be brave, Han. Not when they don’t have a choice.”

Hannah’s eyes sought his, but they were focused on the floor.

***

She got to go home the next morning, after a short checkup. Dr. Trapp spent a long time looking at the bruises on her arms and legs. Then he took Hannah’s parents into a small room beside the nurses’ station and shut the door.

Hannah would have crept into the hall to see if she could make out what they were saying, but Aina was there too, hawkish and alert. There was no possibility of getting out of the room unseen.

Eventually her parents reemerged. Her father hauled her suitcase out of the room, her mother took her hand, and Hannah was free.

After a good night’s sleep, she felt much better. Just before breakfast, the colors that had been missing from her vision for almost a week suddenly reappeared. She could see red again, and green. It was only the memories moving uneasily around her head that proved anything had happened in the first place.

“Isn’t it nice to be going home at last?” said her mother.

Hannah nodded, after a minute. Her father handed her a lollipop from the reception desk. It tasted too sweet. She pushed it to the corner of her mouth and kept her gaze on her shoes, from the hospital parking lot to their house’s front door.

Then there was a burst of sound, and people came running out of the house, their feet bare, their faces animated. Gulliver. Aunt Marissa, holding Moe. Andrew. Tom.

Hannah’s father helped her out of the car. She was immediately surrounded by a ring of sticky, grasping hugs. Her family seemed louder than they usually did. They smelled like orange juice and sweat.

“Look who it is!”

“We made a sign for you – see, it’s on the door!”

“Aunt Marissa made about ten _million_ waffles.”

“I did. They’re in the kitchen.”

“Nana’s home,” said Moe with satisfaction, and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

Hannah looked up at the house. There was a big pink banner on the porch. “WELCOME HOME, HANNAH!” it read in bright blue paint. “WE’VE MISSED YOU!” Everyone had signed it. Even Moe had scribbled something, although Hannah thought his handwriting left something to be desired.

“Do you like it?” said Gulliver, beaming.

She nodded. She couldn’t help thinking that if she had come home even hours earlier, she’d have had no idea that the banner was pink. She had almost gotten used to the world looking brown.

They took her inside and helped her into a chair. She picked at her food, looking at the fibers in the tablecloth instead of at her family. She hadn’t been home since before the camping trip. She had forgotten the way it smelled of wood furniture and roast chicken; forgotten the cuckoo clock that ticked steadily over the dining room table; forgotten the creakiness of the floor. She had the vague feeling that somebody had taken her house away while she was in the hospital and replaced it with one that was just a little bit different.

“Eat up,” said Aunt Marissa, tipping a second waffle that Hannah didn’t want onto her plate. “Hospital food is terrible for you; everyone knows that. You want some whipped cream?”

Hannah gave a tiny nod. She couldn’t bring herself to be mad at Aunt Marissa, who lived all the way in Madison, a whole hour away. Still, she wasn’t going to _say_ anything. Not in front of Tom and Andrew, and definitely not in front of her parents.

She managed to eat all of the whipped cream and two more bites of waffle. In that time, her parents pretended to eat waffles of their own while asking her what seemed like an endless list of questions. They wanted to know if she was tired, if she felt sick, if she wanted to leave the table and go to bed. Tom asked her if she wanted to have a water fight with the hose in the backyard, and Andrew offered to give her an igneous rock from his collection. Hannah shook her head at all of them and looked away.

“I got a new Nerf gun!” said Gulliver, plonking it excitedly onto the table. “It can shoot five bullets at once, not just three. I’ll let you use it if you want.”

“Okay,” said Hannah grudgingly, then went silent again.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Gulliver. “You’re not being _you_. Be you again.”

Hannah rolled her eyes until he slumped away.

After breakfast, it was even trickier to decide how to act. Part of Hannah wanted to go upstairs and sit in her room, where she wouldn’t have to decide anything, but she also didn’t like being alone very much. She knew that after only a few minutes, she would prefer being downstairs with people than being upstairs by herself. Even if she wasn’t going to talk to anyone.

Eventually she went to the living room sofa, where she hugged her knees to her chest and turned on the TV. There weren’t any cartoons on – only a show for preschoolers about a family of fox puppets who were learning to read. Hannah changed the channel. A man with an ugly beard tried to sell her a meat cleaver. A tired-looking newscaster told her about bombs falling over the Middle East. A cartoon rabbit hopped through a commercial for toilet paper. Fine, she thought. She could deal with foxes.

Someone came in and sat next to her. She turned her head a few degrees, so she could see who it was. Tom.

“I’m mad at you. Go away.”

“I know,” said Tom. “But I don’t want you to be.”

“Well, I am,” said Hannah. She turned up the volume.

“Vixen starts with the letter ‘V’!” said Mama Gingertail in a bright voice. “Like me! I’m a vixen.”

“But I thought Vixen was one of Santa’s reindeer,” said Baby Redtop. Hannah hated his character; he was stupendously slow. Andrew always said it was to make the children who watched it feel smarter.

“No, no,” laughed Mama Gingertail. “I meant the _other_ kind of vixen. Did you know that a girl fox is called a vixen, too?”

“Han, you don’t even like this show.”

She stared intently at the screen.

“Does that mean you get to drive Santa’s sled on Christmas?” asked Baby Redtop.

Tom grabbed the remote and turned the television off.

“Turn it back on!”

“No. I want to talk to you.”

“But I don’t want to talk to _you.”_

“Well, you have to,” said Tom, breathing heavily enough that Hannah could tell he wasn’t as calm as he was pretending to be. “Or you have to at least listen, okay?”

“No, I don’t,” said Hannah, trying to take back the remote. “Give it back.”

“Not until you _listen_. It’s not our fault. Don’t you get that? It’s not my fault. It’s not Andrew’s fault. It’s not even Mom and Dad’s. They were doing what the stupid nurses told them to, okay? They didn’t know.”

Hannah glared at him. “I don’t care. You didn’t _tell_ me.”

“We didn’t tell you because Mom and Dad asked us not to! Because that’s what Dr. Trapp told _them_. Anyway, they only told me and Andrew the day before you found out –”

“I told you I don’t care,” Hannah repeated. She kept her eyes carefully trained on the blank TV screen. “Go away.”

Tom made a lofty noise in the back of his throat.

“Go away before I hit you,” said Hannah, and she meant it. She took a couch pillow and lifted it high in the air, at the perfect angle to throw it hard into Tom’s face.

Tom ducked, threw up his hands, and left the room. Hannah felt a brief second of triumph before she realized she was alone again.

She reached for the remote, but the show was over. She dangled upside-down off the couch. The words her father had spoken during their conversation that morning came unbidden into her mind. The official name and the word he didn’t want to use.

 _“Ly-can-thro-pee,”_ Hannah muttered, still upside-down.

It sounded awful coming out of her mouth. Even “werewolf” sounded better than that.

***

Hannah’s attempt at the silent treatment failed. She had known that it would. When she saw people, her mouth opened before she had time to think about what she was going to say – she had always been that way. She started talking to her parents again by dinnertime, and Tom and Andrew by the next morning.

But that didn’t mean she had to stop being mad at them. Just because she was speaking to them didn’t mean that what her family had done was okay.

Aunt Marissa stayed for a week. Hannah found herself spending as much time with her as she could. Hannah knew she had been talking to her parents about her – she could tell by the way they sometimes nodded at each other – but she never mentioned it, because Aunt Marissa was the only person who treated her exactly the same way she had before the camping trip.

“Three scoops or four?” said Aunt Marissa, pacing around Luna’s, the ice cream shop down the street. “Or maybe five? They definitely don’t have –” (she squinted at the chalkboard listing the flavors) “– smoked _salmon_ at the Ben & Jerry’s back home. But maybe that’s a little too exotic?”

“Ew,” said Hannah. “No way. But yes to five scoops. And two of them have to be cake batter flavor.”

Aunt Marissa ordered the biggest sundae Hannah had ever seen, smothered in hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles, and narrowly avoided dropping it on the floor as she tottered toward their table. Hannah dug in greedily. Her cake batter blended a little strangely with Aunt Marissa’s bittersweet chocolate, but she decided she liked the taste.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said, licking the last of it off her spoon.

“I don’t want to leave, either,” said Aunt Marissa. “There aren’t any Hannahs in Madison. But I have my job, and they won’t let me have more than a week off.”

“They should fire you,” said Hannah, with more emotion in her voice than she’d realized she felt. “Then you could come live with us forever and I wouldn’t have to deal with my stupid jerk brothers all the time.”

“Hmm. I like your brothers.” Aunt Marissa took a scoop of apricot ice cream mixed with pistachio and grimaced. “I understand, of course – your dad’s _my_ stupid jerk brother, after all, and sometimes he still drives me nuts. But they love you a lot, just like your dad loves me. You should have seen how hard Tom and Andrew worked on that poster. There aren’t a whole lot of people Tom in particular would sit still for.”

Hannah tried to keep that in mind when Aunt Marissa left that weekend, but it was hard. Being mad at Tom and Andrew meant that she had no patience whatsoever with any attempt at teasing from them, no matter how gentle. She got into terrible trouble for throwing one of her soccer cleats at Andrew, and it was only luck that stopped her from being caught when she kicked Tom in the face. (She’d been aiming for his stomach, but she somehow doubted that would have made much difference to her mother.)

The weird thing was that Tom and Andrew got lectured just as much as Hannah did. Every time Hannah had privileges taken away for “reacting too strongly,” as her father put it, the twins got called into his office and left with tight, gloomy faces. It was almost enough to make her feel sorry for them.

The day after Aunt Marissa left, Hannah woke up in the middle of the night shivering and drenched in sweat. Horrible but familiar sounds echoed in her ears. Only later did she realize that they were coming from her own throat.

Her mother must have heard her, because she materialized next to Hannah’s bed.

“Shh,” she said. She lay down next to Hannah and rubbed her back.

Everything was on fire. “It wouldn’t _stop.”_

“Shh. I know.”

“I was hungry,” Hannah sobbed. “I didn’t _want_ to be hungry.”

After a few minutes, the panic in her chest subsided, and she burrowed her head deep into her mother’s shoulder. Sleep now seemed dangerous, but Hannah had no power to prevent herself from drifting off.

“I didn’t want to,” she said in a small voice, and her mother shushed her.

***

The summer wore on, and Hannah grew edgy and lonely. All her brothers except Moe had been enrolled in camp, and her pleas to have friends over fell on deaf ears.

“You still look pale,” said her mother, looking Hannah over critically. “I want you to take it easy for a while.”

But she didn’t have anyone to take it easy _with,_ and the TV was boring holes into her brain, and she didn’t feel sick anymore. Even the bruises had faded. The only unusual thing was that her eyes had changed again, replacing reds and purples with off-greens and browns. It happened so suddenly that Hannah wasn’t entirely convinced she had ever been able to see them.

She thought about the things her father had told her. Maybe he was wrong about lycanthropy. Maybe all there was to it was weird colors sometimes.

“Every month,” her father had told her. “We’ll tell you when. But you’ll probably start to figure it out for yourself.”

Well, they hadn’t told her.

So it probably wasn’t going to happen.

No, Hannah decided, and instantly felt better. It wasn’t. It wasn’t allowed to. It wasn’t _going_ to.

***

She kicked and screamed.

They held her down.

Dr. Trapp hauled her into the ambulance and slammed the door. Her parents only watched.

A blue-suited employee met them in the hall, snapped a new metal bracelet around Hannah’s wrist, and locked her inside the same cold, dark room as before. She tried to hurt him, to make him _see_ , but the blue fabric he was wearing seemed impervious to her attacks, and so did his expression. He smiled benignly as he closed the door behind her.

Hannah kicked the door. It made a nice echoey crashing noise, but it also made her feet tingle and burn.

“No,” she shouted. “I _won’t_.”

It could not and would not happen again.

She imagined her parents’ faces when they found out she had stopped it. Her mother would hug Hannah until her chest ached, would make one of her special steak and potato pies to celebrate. Her father would kiss the top of her head, would stop looking so serious all the time.

“We thought that lycanthropy didn’t have a cure,” he would say, and pride would radiate from his smile. “But you proved us wrong. You just have to be strong enough to stop it from happening. And you did it, Hannah. You’re the first one ever to do it.”

Dr. Trapp would be astounded. He wouldn’t stop writing in his notepad for days. _“_ Tell me everything!” he would say. “I apologize for the way I treated you; I had no _idea_ you were such an important person. Will you let me interview you?”

Hannah would shake her head modestly. “If you had kept them from locking me up in that room, then maybe I would. But I can’t. Sorry.”

Dr. Trapp would cry and beg, but Hannah would hold firm. Then maybe she’d be on TV. They’d put the evil nurses in jail. They would –

Hannah wheezed suddenly. Her breath had caught strangely in her chest.

There was something terrible crawling down her back. Like abnormally large spiders, or congealed egg yolks, or grasping, frostbitten fingers.

“It _won’t happen,_ ” she told her body, through breaths that had turned gasping. “It’s not _going_ to –”

The feeling got stronger and worse, and then her spine cracked backwards. She experienced the world in sickening, dizzying waves. Her brain felt foggy and raw.

Her throat stopped being able to form words.

And then Hannah stopped, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The metal "bracelets," as I'm sure you've guessed, are tracking devices. On the off chance that a werewolf does escape their confines, they allow them to be found and apprehended quickly.


	4. Curnow

Hannah didn’t bother opening her eyes the next morning. There was no point.

Eventually someone came and lifted her out, heaving her over one shoulder as if she were as flimsy and meaningless as a sack of garbage. Hannah bit her tongue and clenched her throat and tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt. Dr. Trapp was waiting in the ambulance, but Hannah didn’t even open her eyes to glare. If she looked at him, he would be able to see what he had done to her. She would not let that happen.

She slept for the rest of the day and almost the whole night. Every time she felt her brain going conscious, she squashed it back down again.

She was woken by the sounds of her parents’ voices. They were coming from the hallway, but Hannah’s hearing was as good as ever, and she could understand them even with the door closed. It helped that they sounded angry.

“– if you think we’re going to surrender our own _daughter_ to that – to that place –”

“There has to be another option. And if there isn’t – then we’ll make one.”

“I don’t understand how you can even be _sure._ It’s only been two _months –_ you can’t possibly have finished testing her already – everyone I’ve talked to says it takes much longer to really be certain –”

“I’m an expert in my field,” said Dr. Trapp mildly. “And she displays all the classic symptoms. The bruises – the loss of memory – the complete lack of control – it’s very clear, from my perspective. I think you’ll come to understand that this is for the best. Caring for a Type Three without the assistance of the Center would be a brutal task. Imagine what could happen if your mind slipped. I understand that you have other children?”

Hannah’s parents were silent for a second. But only for a second.

“Our minds won’t slip,” said Hannah’s mother. “We’re taking her home.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s my duty to call state police,” said Dr. Trapp. “I know this is upsetting. It’s not the outcome we hoped for. But –”

“But nothing,” snapped Hannah’s father. “You said yourself your order won’t come in until next week; that means we can discharge her. And then we’ll – and then we’ll –” He took a deep breath. “We’ll think of something.”

“Call me when you’ve had time to calm down,” said Dr. Trapp. “You’ll still be able to visit her. It will be easier than you think.”

Loud, furious footsteps stormed their way down the hallway and toward Hannah’s door. It opened with a bang. Hannah’s parents stood in the doorframe. Their hands were intertwined, and their eyes were on fire.

Hannah could only stare.

Her mother strode toward her. “Good. You’re awake,” she said. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but we’re going to have to leave now.”

She leaned over the bed, and Hannah looked into someone else’s face for the first time in more than a day. Her mother’s blue eyes were harder than she’d ever seen them.

“What were you talking about in the hall?” murmured Hannah. “You were yelling.”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” said her father, but his words came out too quickly. “You don’t need to get dressed, Han; I’ll carry you. Don’t try to walk.”

Hannah stiffened. “I’m pretty sure I _can_ walk –”

“We don’t have time. Here – we brought you this.”

It was a hooded sweatshirt. Hannah blinked: it was the beginning of August and boiling out. Before she could protest, though, her father had already pulled it over her shoulders and scooped her up off the bed.

“Now,” he said in an undertone to Hannah’s mother. “Before anyone notices.”

She nodded. “Back door? The fire escape?”

“Let’s go.”

They ran, down the empty hallway and through a set of doors that Hannah had never noticed before. A narrow glass opening led to a balcony outside, which led to a great number of metal stairs, which jolted Hannah uncomfortably as her father sprinted down them. Finally, they reached the car. Hannah’s father opened the back door and helped her inside.

“Are we sneaking out? What was Dr. Trapp talking about? What did he mean about your mind slipping?”

“You’re too young,” said her mother. Her eyes weren’t hard anymore; they looked stricken. “When you’re older, maybe – but you’re safe with us. It’s going to be all right.”

“We’re going to have a chat with you and the boys once you’ve eaten something,” said her father. “Try to rest now.”

Just like the last time, her brothers were there at the front door to greet her. Gulliver slid his Nerf gun into her hand and told her she could shoot anyone in the family she chose. (Hannah shot Tom twice before her parents made her move to the sofa.) Pillows were propped up behind her head, a fuzzy blanket was thrust over her legs, and a plate of cinnamon toast and a mug of hot chocolate were placed on the coffee table.

When Hannah was finished with breakfast, her father came into the living room, his forehead knotted. “Mom and I wondered how you were doing,” he said slowly.

“I’m fine.”

“You still look a little tired.”

“I’m not.”

“Are your colors back?”

“Yes.”

“Well… In that case, if you feel awake enough, we were hoping we could talk to you and your brothers about – about something we decided this morning. It’s a pretty big deal, so we wanted to check to make sure you’re ready to hear it. But it seemed to me like you wanted some answers as soon as possible, so –”

“Yes,” said Hannah immediately. “Tell me now.”

“I’ll have to grab the boys first. But I’ll be back in a minute.”

He dashed off upstairs, and Hannah bit the inside of her cheek. “A pretty big deal,” he had said. What did on earth that mean?

Maybe – maybe he’d found out that she didn’t have lycanthropy after all. Maybe that’s why he and her mother had rushed her out of the hospital so quickly. They had finally realized that she didn’t belong there. That she never had.

But in her heart of hearts, Hannah knew that wasn’t it. Real life wasn’t like that. Terrible things happened; they happened all the time; and there was nothing you could do about them. No matter how much you tried…

Her mother cleared her throat as she entered the room. There were heavy bags under her eyes. Behind her came Hannah’s father, carrying Moe, trailed by Tom and Andrew and Gulliver. They sat down side by side on the floor, looking up at Hannah on the couch.

“We’ve decided that we’re moving,” said Hannah’s mother quietly.

“To Virginia,” said her father. “To a town called Curnow. In one week.”

The reaction was loud and instantaneous. Tom jumped up, his face contorted with rage. Andrew went a funny shade of pink and buried his head in his arms. Gulliver simply raised his fists in the air and screamed.

“That’s not fair!” shouted Tom. “You can’t just make us _leave_ like that! I have friends! Andrew and I are starting middle school!”

“We’ve lived here our whole lives,” said Andrew in a small voice. “And you’re asking us to move in a _week?”_

Hannah was the only one (unless you counted Moe, who was happily sucking his thumb and watching the chaos unfold) who stayed quiet. She tried to think of something to say. She should be angry and upset like everyone else, shouldn’t she? She had friends, too, even if she hadn’t seen them in months. She had never lived anywhere except for Milwaukee.

“Why?” she said finally, in a voice that came out a lot more uncertain than she wanted it to.

“It’s complicated,” said her father. “A – grown-up kind of complicated. You don’t need to worry; nobody’s in trouble; but there are some things that aren’t – _appropriate_ for eight-year-olds to know. Or ten-year-olds, either,” he said, glancing at the twins.

“We’re going to have to do a lot of work this week,” said her mother. “Most people take at least a month to move. We’re going to have to pack everything up in a few days. You’ll all help out, won’t you?”

“Where are we even going to live?” said Andrew. “You can’t have gotten a house that fast. Or a job – Dad, do you even have a job?”

“There are people we can contact,” said their father, a little stiffly. “They’ll help us out until we can get back on our feet.”

With that, the family meeting was over. Not long after, Tom and Andrew and Gulliver were all sent to their rooms for refusing to stop yelling. Hannah was left by herself with her empty mug of hot chocolate. She licked the bitter cocoa off the edge and thought.

They were moving because of her – she was almost sure of it. Because of something Dr. Trapp had said, something he’d wanted – something her parents were not prepared to give him. Something that had caused them to grab her and run, so that not even the hospital knew they had left. Something so awful that they couldn’t even tell Tom and Andrew what it was.

Hannah remembered what Dr. Trapp had said to her parents. _Imagine what could happen if your mind slipped._

And the way it had made them quiet, if only for a split second.

***

The new house was cramped and creaky and smelled strongly of lentils. None of the lights seemed to work correctly, leaving the Cobhams in a perpetual state of dimness, no matter how many windows they thrust open. The dishwasher was broken (so broken, said Hannah’s mother, that she doubted it could ever have been functional), and the washing machine flooded the basement every time it was turned on. Worst of all, she had to share a room with Tom and Andrew, which meant tripping over their Pokemon cards every time she got up to use the bathroom.

Not surprisingly, the family spent a lot of time out of the house. Since Hannah’s father had been given a month’s break before starting the new government job he’d found, the whole family was able to go places together. Curnow was a very small town, but it was only about an hour and a half away from Washington, DC, so they went everywhere from the merry-go-round on the National Mall to the Spy Museum to the National Zoo.

Hannah refused to enjoy anything about these outings. DC in August was hotter and more humid than anywhere she had ever been, and being forced to march along the crowded streets as sweat trickled down her neck gave her lots to complain about.

“It feels like I’m _drinking_ sweat every time I breathe in,” said Hannah, waving a hand through the thick, smoggy air. “It’s gross.”

“Welcome to Washington,” said her father. “Want to look at the pandas with me?”

“I hate pandas,” said Hannah. “They smell.”

“All animals smell a little bit.”

“I especially hate pandas. They smell a _lot.”_

She was hauled off to see the pandas regardless. They chomped on stalks of bamboo and looked wearily at their visitors from inside their enclosure. They stank almost as badly as the cheetahs had twenty minutes before. Hannah gave a loud sigh.

“Yes, well, maybe it is getting a little hot,” said her father uncomfortably. “We could stop at that gelato place we passed. You’ll like it.”

Hannah did like the gelato, but she was hardly going to admit it. Anyway, it wasn’t the ice cream she had shared with Aunt Marissa, which made it automatically inferior. She felt a painful stab in her chest as she realized she would probably never get to go to Luna’s again.

The end of August arrived, and with it, Hannah’s first week at her new school. For reasons she still didn’t understand, her mother had arranged for her to start at a different school from her brothers, one that began three weeks earlier and required an ugly uniform – a gray jumper over a pale blue blouse. The school was called Trevarthen Academy and taught students from pre-kindergarten all the way up through high school.

“Why aren’t Tom and Andrew going here?” said Hannah, as her mother drove her up and down Curnow’s scrubby green hills. Ragweed and goldenrod bloomed at the side of the road, heralding the coming fall. They passed the shopping area, with its blue and white awnings, and Curnow Hospital, with its mass of beige-colored bricks beneath a glowing entrance sign.

“Tom and Andrew didn’t get a scholarship,” said her mother. “You did. Look, we’re here. It’s – not bad, is it?”

It looked nothing like Hannah’s old school. She couldn’t help gawking as her mother swung the car into the parking lot. It wasn’t a school so much as it was a _village_ , with towering stone buildings connected by a series of pathways; massive, pristinely kept sports fields; and even a little forest bordering the edges.

“I’ll walk you in,” said Hannah’s mother, her voice tense. “I want to make sure the teachers know who you are.”

They stopped by the front office, where Hannah’s mother and the principal had a short, boring conversation, and then Hannah was led off to her class, which was taught by a woman called Stephanie.

“We call teachers by their first names here,” she said, beaming at Hannah so brightly that she grimaced. “No Mrs. this and Mr. that. You’ll get used to it pretty fast.”

Hannah didn’t think so, especially since the names weren’t all that was strange about Trevarthen. Her class at home had contained only fifteen students; her class here had twenty-six. According to Stephanie, this was because the students were supposed to help each other. On their first day, they were organized into four groups and assigned seats at large, round tables that were scattered across the classroom. Each group was given a different task to work on while Stephanie circled around and helped.

Hannah wasn’t sure what to make of her table. There were seven children altogether: Ella, Chloe, Ira, Connor, Aimee, Kieran, and Hannah herself. They looked friendly enough, but it was obvious that they had known each other since kindergarten and had long since stopped finding the teaching style strange.

“You’re new,” said Ella, who sat next to Hannah. She had thin blonde hair that stuck up around her head like a halo.

Hannah shrugged. It was probably best to pretend she didn’t care. “I know.”

“Where’re you from?” said Connor, a small boy with more freckles than Hannah had ever seen.

“Wisconsin,” said Hannah. “Milwaukee. My old school was really different.”

“Well, you’ll like Trevarthen,” said Ella with confidence. “It’s the best school in the world. My mom always says so. She went here when she was our age. And my three older sisters do, too.”

“You have sisters?” said Hannah in spite of herself. “Three of them?”

“Mmhmm,” said Ella. “But they’re annoying. How about you?”

“Brothers,” said Hannah, sighing. “Four of them. I bet they’re more annoying than your sisters. They _never_ stop talking. And I’m always stepping on their LEGOs.”

“Wow,” said Ella.

They gazed at each other with jealousy.

“Can I come to your house?” said Hannah.

“Can I come to yours?” said Ella eagerly.

They shook hands and agreed.

With Ella as a friend, it wasn’t difficult to get to know the others – at least well enough to poke Ira when she was bored and pretend it had been someone else, or tease Kieran about being in love with Stephanie. Trevarthen was an okay place, Hannah admitted after a week or two. Even if it was a weird one.

***

Hannah stiffened as her mother dragged her through the parking lot. Each footstep brought them closer to the ugly brick of the hospital, which Hannah was certain was based on the same designs as maximum-security prisons. They went inside and squeezed into an elevator, because Hannah’s head hurt too much to walk up the steps. It took them eight floors up, to the very top level.

 _Lycanthropy Ward_ , said a sign just beyond the elevator doors. _No entry without appointment. Waiting area strictly monitored. Please have your ID ready._

“I don’t have an ID,” said Hannah hopefully.

“I do,” said her mother.

They went a little further. There was a large desk and a dark-haired woman with a sharp chin.

Hannah’s mother looked at her anxiously. “We have an appointment for nine o’clock?”

The woman studied them. Her eyes lingered on Hannah for much longer than Hannah was comfortable with.

“And the name is?”

“Cobham.”

“Hannah Penelope?”

“Yes.”

The woman pressed a wide silver button that was set into the wall. Hannah and her mother stood awkwardly to the side, watching.

After a few minutes, a set of double doors behind the desk swung open. A fairly young woman with blonde hair pinned on top of her head strode out to meet them. She was followed by a man with broad shoulders and thick-framed glasses. Both of them were smiling. Hannah instinctively crossed her arms over her chest.

“You guys can come back,” said the woman, gesturing towards the doors. She had an English accent. “I’m Rose.”

“I’m David,” said the man. “And thanks for coming early. I know it’s an inconvenience, but we thought it might be easier for Hannah if she had time to look around a little.”

“No apologies needed,” said Hannah’s mother. “Max and I fully agree.” She held out her hand for Rose and David to shake. Hannah gazed straight ahead, past Rose, who seemed to be trying to look her in the eye.

They followed the doctors behind the desk, around a corner, down a long hallway with several unexpected turns to it, and into a room with a door that Hannah’s mother seemed to find interesting.

“Pink for Rose,” Rose explained. “One of my patients did it.”

Her office was a cozy little place with several cushy sofas, three shelves overstuffed with books, and a desk that was swimming in papers. She sat down on one of the couches and gestured to another, where Hannah perched, tensely, on the edge.

“So here’s the deal,” said Rose. “I don’t feel I need to check Hannah over at this stage. I can learn a lot more about her based on the answers to a few questions I’m hoping to ask. We’ve got the files that her doctors in Milwaukee sent us, but for obvious reasons, we aren’t going to treat them as the gospel truth. The idea is to make Hannah as safe and comfortable as possible during her time here. And you too, of course, Grace.”

Hannah got the feeling that Rose was trying to direct most of what she was saying to her, despite the fact that she appeared to be speaking to Hannah’s mother. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Now then. As we discussed earlier, I’ve got a clipboard full of rather tedious information for you to fill out. While you’re doing that, I’d quite like to chat with Hannah. Of course, if you’d rather stay, I won’t prevent you. It’s entirely up to you two. But I have found that sometimes the patient feels a bit freer when their parents have left the room.”

Hannah’s mother winced and then recovered. “I – well, yes, if you think that’s best. But Max and I, we just wanted to make sure – you and Dr. Arkwright are the only doctors here? There are only the two of you?”

Rose and David exchanged glances, as if they were used to this question.

“We’re still the best hospital in the world for lycanthropy, in anyone’s book,” said David. “It’s just that we don’t usually _need_ more than two doctors. You can say what you will about lycanthropy, but it does have the advantage of running on a very specific schedule. There are only a couple days a month when there’s any point in having more of us here. And there are about six part-timers that show up for that – they’ll be here in an hour or two. But usually it’s just me and Rose. And when it comes to the kids, we try to give them a little more stability by having it be just me and Rose for full moons, too.”

Hannah’s mother nodded, babbled a little about how kind he and Rose were being, and went out the door with the clipboard Rose handed her. Then it was just Hannah and the doctors.

Well. _She_ certainly wasn’t going to be the first person to say something. She tapped her fingers in a soft rhythm on the corduroy cushions on the couch. She kept her gaze away from theirs.

“Right,” said Rose. “So you’re Hannah.”

Hannah nodded very slightly.

“And you’re eight years old, and you’re from Wisconsin, and you’ve only just moved here. And that’s all we know about you! I hope we’ll get to know you a bit better as time goes on. But for now, I’m afraid, we’ve got to concentrate on the lycanthropy bits. Not my favorite thing to talk about. Even though it’s my job.”

Hannah gave a loud sigh, trying to insinuate that none of this interested her in the slightest.

“It’s rewarding, though, I’ll give it that. Do you know why I started working here? I had a boyfriend who had lycanthropy. Gwyn. He left me a few months later, but I kept the job. Silly prat.”

“What happened to him?” said Hannah, before she could stop herself.

“Not a clue,” said Rose, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. “Could be doing anything. Now, your mum says that the last hospital you were at was a very unprofessional sort of place – they were really quite mean to you, she said. David and I want you to know that if there’s anything at all that makes you uncomfortable tonight – or any other night, for that matter – you should tell us right away. We want to make sure you feel at home whenever you have to spend time here.”

Something flared inside Hannah’s chest. “I’m not _going_ to spend time here,” she said.

Rose and David exchanged another glance.

“They did tell you, didn’t they?” said David. “Your parents?”

“I’m _not_ coming back.”

“But if you did,” said Rose, “I hope things would be better than they were before. David and I would try to make it that way.”

Hannah gritted her teeth and crossed her arms again.

“Can I ask you about your symptoms, Hannah? Whether you’ve been feeling any different at all since you got the bite? Most of the time, of course, you probably feel the same. But a few things might be different. You probably smell things a little more strongly than you used to. Or you might be able to hear a bit better.”

Hannah shook her head.

“That’s a no?” said David.

“No,” said Hannah stiffly.

“No, it’s not a no?”

 _“No,”_ said Hannah.

Rose laughed the kind of laugh that Hannah knew had to be done on purpose. “You really don’t like giving people straight answers, do you?”

“Dr. Trapp asked me that,” said Hannah. “In Wisconsin.”

“Oh. Well, we don’t like Dr. Trapp around here. Feel free to give me a different answer than you gave him.”

“I told him I didn’t,” said Hannah.

“That you didn’t have any symptoms?”

“Yeah.”

“And was that true?”

Hannah crossed her arms more tightly and watched her feet bump into each other.

“How about other symptoms, then? The kind you get just before the full moon? Like colorblindness – that’s the classic symptom – and then maybe cravings for foods rich in iron, like meat or green vegetables. Maybe headaches, probably some achiness or dizziness, especially on days like today. Anything like that?”

“I don’t know.”

Rose nodded, as if Hannah’s answer actually meant something. “And your transformations? I’ve got the report from the hospital in Milwaukee, but like I said before, we aren’t sure if we can trust what they’ve said. So we’ll need you to tell us a couple things.”

She plucked a manila envelope off her desk and tipped out a packet of papers. Hannah didn’t see how she could be sure it was the right envelope, since her desk rivaled even Tom’s in messiness, but it seemed to be, because she moved her finger down one of the pages and frowned. She mouthed something at David, who shook his head.

“They’ve got you down as a Type Three, Hannah,” said Rose, in a more businesslike way than before. “Do you know what that means?”

“Nobody tells me _anything,_ ” said Hannah softly.

“Hmm. I hope David and I will prove ourselves different. Now, your transformations from before, the ones at the facility in Milwaukee. The place where they took you on full moon nights. Do you remember anything about what happened to you there?”

“They locked me in a room,” said Hannah. “They didn’t let me out.”

Rose looked sober. “Do you remember what happened after that?”

“I was sick.”

“Sick how?”

“I felt _sick._ ”

“And then?”

“I turned into a wolf,” said Hannah, growing impatient. “They _said_ I did. And then I don’t remember anymore.”

When Rose didn’t reply, Hannah glanced upwards. Rose’s hands were tight around the packet of papers, and she was focused on something she was writing at the top of the page. Hannah was reminded of Dr. Trapp and the way he scribbled in his notebook every time he so much as looked at her.

All hospitals were the same.

Hannah retreated into the world that her growing headache had begun to pull her into. Tiny yellow sparks flashed on and off in places they didn’t belong. She watched them fade, holding her head, until her mother came back to kiss her goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the part of Virginia that Hannah's family moved to fairly well. A lot of things in that region have Scottish names, but as this is my version and my world, I decided to replace those with Cornish names. I wanted the area to retain that slightly odd feeling of "why do so many things have Celtic/British names here?" while also having the freedom to create an entirely new setting.
> 
> "Curnow" actually just means "from Cornwall," but it also sounds a little like "cure now," which is what Hannah's mother hopes it will be.


	5. Letters

There was a boy at the hospital, and his name was Harry. He had scruffy light brown hair and a braided rat tail that hung just below his left ear. His eyes were bordered by dark circles. He was sitting on Rose’s sofa, the one that was allegedly pink, playing with a piece of string that had come loose from the stitching.

“You’re in my class, aren’t you?” he said, when he saw Hannah. “Stephanie’s class. At Trevarthen?”

“Maybe,” said Hannah, trying to sound haughty and cool.

“You are. You’re new. I don’t remember your name, but I’m Harry.”

Hannah frowned. “Like Harry Potter?”

“No,” said Harry. He explained that as a baby, he had been born early, and when his parents had finally been allowed to see him, he was lying in a hospital incubator, covered in very small, very fine brown hairs. His older sister had dubbed him Hairy, and the name had stuck.

“I’m not hairy anymore, of course,” he said. “Not usually.”

Hannah looked meaningfully at his rat tail. She wondered how bad his real name was if he wanted to be called Harry instead. It was probably something like Archibald.

“I’m Hannah.”

“That’s a good name. What Type are you?”

“Rose said Three,” said Hannah reluctantly.

“Oh,” said Harry. “That’s different from me – I’m a Type One. So… you don’t remember stuff after you transform?”

Hannah shook her head and immediately flinched at the pain it caused. “What does Type One mean?”

Harry looked at her incredulously and then smiled. Hannah knew that look – Andrew always had it when he was about to spew facts from one of the science books he’d memorized. She steeled herself.

“It just means that when I turn into a wolf, I still have the same brain,” said Harry. “I’m still me. The only difference is I have a wolf body. About a third of us are Ones; the rest are other Types. It all depends on how your body reacted to the poison in the wolf bite.”

Hannah sighed. “What else can you be?”

“Well, there’re other kids who come,” said Harry. “Tristan’s a Two. That means when he turns into a wolf, he thinks like real wolves do – you know, like in the wild. He says he can remember the night, but he can’t really control what he does. He says his wolf mind just keeps trying to escape.”

“I don’t remember anything at all,” said Hannah.

“I know. That’s because you’re a Three. It’s _kind_ of like being a Two, but the wolf brain is stronger, and it wants different things. That’s the dangerous part.”

“The dangerous part?”

Harry wound the thread around his finger. “Type Threes… the wolf mind… they just want to… well, um, that’s how most of us got bitten in the first place. Threes are really hungry all the time. So people have to be careful not to get close to them when it’s a full moon.”

“I don’t want to bite people,” said Hannah indignantly. “Maybe I’m a Type Four.”

“There _is_ no Type Four –”

But before Harry could finish, the door to Rose’s office opened, and four children walked in. They waved vaguely at Harry and stared at Hannah.

“These are our other regulars,” said Rose. “Tristan, Eva, James, and Nicolas. Everyone, this is Hannah.”

Four wan, weary faces glanced up at Hannah and then away. All of them were older than Hannah except for James, who couldn’t have been more than six.

“These guys all live in Curnow and come here every month, just like you will,” said Rose to Hannah as the newcomers sat down. “I’m sure you’ll learn the ropes in no time.”

Hannah scooted closer to Harry on the couch. Nicolas had sat down on her other side. He had stubble on his chin and was an entire foot taller than her. She tried to guess how old he was without letting him know she was looking at him. Thirteen? Fourteen? Definitely older than Tom and Andrew.

“I do _not_ want to bite people,” she hissed in Harry’s ear.

She tapped her toes on the floor so that they made a fast-paced beat she could focus on instead of the pulsing in her head. She looked at her feet as she did it. For a little while longer, they were only boring human feet. Inside a pair of white and yellow sandals.

“Can you stop that?” muttered Nicolas from beside her. “It’s making my head hurt.”

“Well, it’s making my head _stop_ hurting.”

“Nothing’s going to make your head stop hurting. You should know that by now.”

Hannah ignored him and started a new beat with her fingers on the back of the couch. _Tap-tap-tap-TAP-tap-tap-tap._ Harry watched her.

“Do you know Morse code?” he said.

“No,” said Hannah.

“You should learn. We could use it to talk to each other without anyone else understanding. We could even do it in school – we can hear a lot better than other people, you know. Nobody else would even notice.”

“It’s like a secret language?”

“Yeah. I have a book on it – my dad gave it to me for Hanukkah last year. People used it in World War II and stuff. You can talk to people just by tapping. I’m not very good at it, but I could get better.”

“Okay,” said Hannah.

Her head was really starting to ache. Nicolas was right.

After a few more minutes, Rose told them it was time to leave, that they had twenty minutes left before the moon rose, and that the adults and older teenagers had already been taken downstairs. She told Hannah that if she had any questions, she should feel free to ask them. That she and David were there for her. That she never wanted her to feel the way she had felt in Wisconsin.

Hannah squirmed away from the expression on her face. She walked behind Harry as they were led into the elevator. Rose punched a code into the wall and waited. They began to descend to a level that there was no button for.

Hannah didn’t pay attention to very much after that. The basement hallway they came out in was antiseptically clean and didn’t smell nearly as bad as the building she’d been taken to in Wisconsin, but it was still dark and silent and clearly not used very often.

They reached some rooms with doors that locked. One by one, Rose shut them in. She gave them each a hug first. When it was James’ turn, he clung to her and begged her not to let go. When it was Nicolas’ turn, he walked inside with his back hunched, slamming the door himself before Rose could close it.

Finally, only Hannah and Harry were left.

“Do you want to go ahead of Harry, or after?” said Rose, putting a hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “It’s up to you. As the newbie, you get to call the shots.”

“I don’t know.”

“How about at the same time? I’ll open the two doors together.”

She did. She gave Harry a hug and then Hannah, and Hannah was torn between tearing herself away as fast as she could or clinging like James. All she ended up doing was hugging Rose limply back.

Rose locked the door.

The pillow in the room was plumper than it had been in Wisconsin, and the blanket was thicker, and the paint on the wall wasn’t peeling, but other than that, it was the same. Hannah dragged herself into a corner and sat down.

What should she do? Crying wasn’t an option. Not anymore.

She wrapped her arms around her knees. She concentrated her mind on the tight, panicked feeling inside her chest, imagining it knotting into a small, hard ball, so tiny that even she would forget that it was there.

A tapping came at the wall. Hannah turned. It was coming from the room Harry had been locked in.

Hannah stared for a second, then scooted over a few feet. She rapped hard against the wall, three times.

 _Tap-tap-tap._ Three raps back.

Although it felt like heresy, Hannah allowed herself a small smile in the dark. She tapped again. One, two, three.

_Tap-tap-tap._

Then Hannah’s head swam and her knees shook and her hands wouldn’t reach the wall anymore. Dark, wiry hairs shot through the fraught skin that Hannah no longer recognized as her own. She clutched at her stomach and thought about begging the world or God or _someone_ to make it stop, the way she had the last time, but she knew now that if she couldn’t stop it herself, then nobody could.

That was the way things worked.

***

Hannah’s life in Curnow developed a rhythm. She got used to wearing the Trevarthen uniform and sometimes even remembered to fold it when she got home from school. Her parents found a house that they liked, larger and brighter than the one they were renting, and moved into it just before Christmas. The backyard was big enough that when the first snow hit, Hannah spent all day building an igloo with her brothers, stopping every so often to pelt Tom with snowballs and drop ice down Andrew’s back.

Rather to Hannah’s surprise, she and Harry became good friends. Part of this was due to the fact that he had made good on his promise to teach her Morse code, and his lessons had also fascinated Ella. Together, the three of them practiced, using the bathroom door that connected Hannah’s bedroom to the twins’. Hannah found the process of memorizing all the _dits_ and _dahs_ much duller than she had hoped. She often tried to distract Harry by stealing something that belonged to him and running away with it, but Harry stuck to his guns and forced her to finish.

 _Di-di-di-dit,_ he tapped, before tapping a whole succession of things at lightning speed. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah grumbled, shifting sideways from where she lay sprawled on the floor. “I want a break.”

“You have to at least try.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I don’t _know_.”

“Nope,” said Harry. “It’s your name. H-A-N-N-A-H. You should at least know that one by now. Ella can do hers.”

“Ella’s name is shorter!”

“Just try,” said Harry, shoving the book towards Hannah. “It’s easier than you think.”

He waited. Hannah surprised herself by getting it right.

Before long, Morse code fever had spread to the rest of Hannah’s group at school. The problem was that, while the others learned at the same speed as Hannah or even faster, their ability to hear her messages was awful. By the time April arrived, half the class was fluent in Morse code, but nobody could ever hear what Hannah and Harry tapped out to each other during class.

“It’s because you guys do it so _quietly_ ,” Ella complained. “Couldn’t you be just a little bit louder?”

“Hannah tried one time,” said Harry. “Stephanie told her to stop making noise. If we do it louder, we’ll get in trouble.”

“You guys just need to listen harder,” said Hannah, smirking. “ _I_ can always hear Harry.”

Harry came over a lot. His mother and Hannah’s had begun having coffee every week, which Hannah knew really meant sitting on the sofa and talking about their children. Hannah and Harry were always sent out of the living room and told to entertain themselves for a few hours.

“We can’t even _be_ in here?” said Hannah, wanting to listen in.

“Sometimes, parents need time alone with their friends. The same way that you and Harry wouldn’t want me hanging around every time the two of you got together.”

It wasn’t the same thing, and Hannah’s mother knew it.

Still, Hannah and Harry had fun when they were together. Once, they spent hours building a fort out of couch cushions, pillows, a rocking horse, and Gulliver’s duvet. Another time, Hannah successfully managed to sneak a jumbo pack of marshmallows out of the kitchen. She convinced a reluctant Harry to lick the bottoms of each marshmallow and throw them at Tom and Andrew’s bedroom ceiling, where they stuck fast. To her brothers’ credit, they never told on them. Hannah privately suspected this was because they got to eat them as they fell down.

Where she could, Hannah did eavesdrop. Sometimes the coffee dates took place at the local Starbucks, which meant that threads of conversation made their way into Hannah’s keen ears, even as she and Harry sat at a table across the room.

One of the first things Hannah overheard was the story of how Harry had been bitten when he was only four. Apparently, the Lucas family had lived in Curnow even before the bite; they’d had the bad luck to have a lycanthropic neighbor with an unfortunate habit of forgetting about full moons. Harry got apologetic birthday cards from him every year, usually with money inside. His parents forbade him to write back.

To Hannah’s delight, her own mother talked about how desperate she’d been for a daughter until Hannah arrived. How, when she found out she was having twins, she was absolutely sure that one of them would be a girl – until they weren’t. How she hoped that Hannah would always feel a special connection to her, even when she was all grown up. Hannah knew that her mother loved her brothers just as much, but she still enjoyed hearing her mother talk as if the mere fact that she existed was somehow impressive.

The not-so-nice conversations happened too, and significantly more often than the nice ones. Hannah never fully understood them, but that didn’t make them any more fun to hear.

“…I just can’t seem to get _rid_ of them,” Hannah’s mother said once, her voice tight. “I’ve done everything they tell you to do. I’m trying so hard to relax… and Max is a huge help… but they just keep coming _back_ …”

“It’s hard,” said Harry’s mother. “And it’s only natural. The important thing is that you don’t let them control your life.”

“If I could do that, they wouldn’t be a problem in the first place, would they? I just… every time I _see_ her… and every full moon… and there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say… because it’s a mother’s job to protect her children, isn’t it? Max thinks I should see someone… but I’m not sure…”

Hannah usually stopped listening when the conversation went in this direction. She still hadn’t forgotten the way her mother’s face had looked at the hospital in Wisconsin.

She supposed she had gotten used to full moons, as much as anyone ever could. Once a month, her eyes changed, and she felt the moon thrumming in her temples. Her mother drove her to the hospital, where Hannah practiced Morse code with Harry until her head hurt too much to continue. Then it was back down to the hospital basement, where she and Harry tapped secret messages on the walls until the wolf’s mind swallowed her whole. She slept off the aches and the bruises and told herself firmly that none of it mattered.

Hannah had also learned a little more about the way lycanthropy was perceived at Trevarthen. She hadn’t thought about how or whether people would find out, but she soon learned that they already knew – whether she wanted them to or not.

When she first realized this, she spent the entire day in a huff. It seemed obvious to her that it was Harry’s fault. She tracked him down at the end of the school day so that she could shout at him.

“ _You weren’t supposed to tell them!_ Chloe asked me when the next full moon was. She _knows,_ Harry! And then Connor talked about it, too! My whole _table_ knows!”

“I didn’t realize that you hadn’t –” Harry started.

“Most people our age have never even _heard_ of lycanthropy! It’s not fair! Now they’re all going to feel _sorry_ for me and give me weird looks and stuff, and – and it’s all because of you!”

She noticed Ella approaching them curiously from the other end of the blacktop. Hannah looked away from her.

“Hannah,” said Harry. “I didn’t tell them. Or… maybe I mentioned it to a couple people, but not in a big way. Everybody knows about that stuff here. Even really little kids.”

Ella caught up to them and put an arm around Hannah’s shoulder.

“Harry’s right,” she said. “It’s because we live in Curnow. So we have to be extra careful in case one of the patients at the werewolf hospital forgets about transformations or something. We get notes every full moon day after school – look, I think I still have one from before. I _always_ forget to give them to my parents.”

She rifled through her backpack and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. She handed it to Hannah, who took it disbelievingly.

 _  
Dear Parents_ , it said.

_This is just a routine reminder that the full moon will rise at approximately 7:18 p.m. EST this evening. The town of Curnow is committed to halting the spread of lycanthropy, but slip-ups can and do occur. Please utilize the following tips to help keep you and your family safe:_

  1. _Avoid going outside after dark._
  2. _Lock your windows and doors._
  3. _Report any suspicious-looking individuals you might notice before sunset._
  4. _If you see or hear a lycanthrope post-transformation, call 911 immediately._



_We also recommend talking to your child about lycanthropy and the full moon. Come up with a family plan in case of an unexpected encounter. The more prepared your child is, the safer they will be._   
  


Hannah handed it back.

“I don’t like that,” she said, mostly to Harry.

“But you see that what we’re saying is true,” he said, putting his hands on his hips.

“You haven’t proved it.”

“Yes, we have,” said Ella. “I just showed you the note, _and_ I told you that I knew about werewolves already. We had a school assembly about it. And I’ve known about Harry since I was six.” She paused a second. “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes,” said Hannah.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want you to _know_.”

“It’s not my fault,” said Ella. “I mean, it was easy to figure out. You never come to school when it’s a full moon or the day after, either.”

“Then I’ll come to school when it’s a full moon and the day after, too.”

“Hannah,” said Harry softly. “Why does it matter what people think? They’re just people. If they have a problem with it, you ignore them. They don’t matter.”

“ _I_ don’t care if you’re a werewolf or not,” said Ella. “I guess sometimes people are scared, because they’re afraid they’re going to get bitten, but I know you’re not going to bite me. You’re my friend. And besides, I’m brave.”

 _No, you’re not_ , Hannah thought.

“Why don’t you want us to know?”

Hannah played with her ponytail. She realized she didn’t have a reason – not a real one. She just didn’t like it.

***

After two years of coffees, moon cycles, and Morse code lessons, Hannah entered fifth grade – her last year in Trevarthen’s lower school. This meant that her teachers were preparing Hannah and her classmates in earnest for middle school. They had extra classes three times a week, where they learned about alcohol, their changing bodies, and what it meant to be a teenager. Hannah, Ella, and Harry spent most of these classes in fits of giggles.

Hannah greatly enjoyed being able to come home and tell her brothers what she had learned.

“Basically, we’re going to grow a lot of hair and be grumpy all the time,” she told Tom and Andrew. “Oh, and people are going to try to make us smoke drugs and drink beer. Is that true?”

Tom and Andrew glanced at each other.

“Which parts?” said Andrew.

“I don’t know. All of it.”

“Look at my chin,” said Andrew. “Do you see a beard?”

“No,” said Hannah, “but they said that stuff happens to boys later than girls, and also, you don’t _only_ grow hair on your chin –”

“Well, we’re not grumpy all the time either,” said Tom quickly. “And we’re halfway through middle school, so we should know.”

“You’re grumpier than you used to be,” said Hannah. “Both of you.”

“We are not,” said Tom and Andrew in unison.

They were. Nowadays, Andrew spent most of his time in their room with the door shut, and Tom didn’t respond the same way he used to when Hannah teased him. More often than not, he yelled at her to go away, even if all she was doing was attacking him with a pool noodle.

“Middle school’s harder than elementary school,” Andrew explained. “There’s a lot more homework and stuff. So we have more to think about.”

“They told us that too,” said Hannah. “They said that you get more tired and more stressed because of hormones. And sometimes you get crushes on people. And sometimes you need deodorant. And with boys, their voices get lower. Do you think you have hormones yet?”

“No,” snapped Tom.

“Everyone has hormones,” said Andrew. “Including you.”

“I do _not_ ,” said Hannah delicately. “ _Some_ people in my class have hormones already – Ella’s definitely getting them; she’s really angry about it – but not me. I’m not going to have hormones until I’m at least thirteen.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” said Andrew. “You can’t just – control it.”

“Ella’s birthday is in January,” said Hannah, exasperated. “Mine isn’t until the end of May. So obviously I’m going to get mine later.”

“Han –”

“What about the beer thing? Has anybody tried to make you drink beer or smoke drugs?”

“You don’t smoke drugs; you _do_ drugs,” said Tom.

“Do _you_ do drugs?”

“No,” said Tom, looking even more uncomfortable. “There are some kids that do, though. Eighth graders, mostly, but I heard one of them sold Jasper Kennicott some weed. He’s going to smoke with his friends behind the gym after school btomorrow.”

“You said that you can’t say ‘smoke drugs,’ and then you said he was going to!”

“You don’t smoke drugs. You _do_ drugs and you _smoke_ weed. It’s just how you say it. You don’t want to go around sounding like an idiot. Even if you aren’t actually going to do it, it’s good to sound like you know what you’re talking about. People will respect you more.”

“Or you could just not talk about drugs at all,” said Andrew. “That works, too.”

“Andrew, just because you hang out with nerds –”

“We’re not nerds.”

“You are,” said Tom. “No offense, but everyone says it. I’ve heard you and Gregor and Simeon talking. You guys don’t like anything that doesn’t have to do with computers and weird books and stuff. I haven’t seen you play a sport since we left Wisconsin –”

“At least I’m not hanging out with potheads,” hissed Andrew. “At least I’m not following Patricia Pallant around like some stupid little puppy dog.”

Tom looked at him for a minute before lunging at Andrew’s face.

Hannah wasn’t sure what to make of it. She had never seen her brothers argue like that before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's real name is Stuart, but that never made it into the finished draft. I'm not even sure Hannah ever finds out.
> 
> I don't know whether the marshmallow trick would actually *work*, but I liked the mental image enough to want to keep it. It's very Them.


	6. Wonderland

Harry started transforming at home instead of in the hospital. This was made possible by a new set of laws, which had barely squeezed past the state governor. There were a number of people, Harry said, who were worried about Type Ones transforming in private.

“I was reading about it in the newspaper,” Harry said, ignoring Hannah’s smirk – Harry was the only kid she knew who ever bothered to look at the paper. “Some people think we might bite somebody. Even though we can control it. They said it’s like having a bomb in your house. It might go off and hurt people.”

“Only if you set the bomb off,” said Hannah, frowning. “But why would you do that?”

“Exactly,” said Harry. “But I don’t think they trust us very much.”

Hannah thought. “What if there was a Type One who was _evil_ , though? Like, who just wanted to bite as many people as they could? Maybe they would be really angry that they got bitten in the first place and decide they want to turn the whole world into werewolves.”

“I guess that could happen,” said Harry. “It’s just – there are evil _people_ too, and I think they forgot about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to be a werewolf to hurt people. There are some kinds of people who want to go out with their guns and shoot everybody. And they do.”

“I don’t know about _that,_ ” said Hannah. “I’ve never met one.”

Hannah wasn’t going to get to transform at home the way Harry was, at least not for a while. There were some scientists working on a way, David said, but they hadn’t finished testing it yet. They needed to make sure it was absolutely safe.

“Safe,” Hannah repeated. “What does that mean?”

“The medicine that they’re making would essentially turn you into a Type One,” said David. “Make you capable of making your own decisions. Eliminate the need to lock you up.”

“Oh,” said Hannah. She had heard it before. Her mother talked about the scientists’ magic medicine – or “Moon Pills,” as they were apparently called – endlessly. Only she never said anything about them being safe or not safe. She just gabbled about how great they were going to be. And then she looked at Hannah meaningfully, as if she were supposed to have an opinion on the matter.

Hannah made him play checkers with her so that he would stop talking. David had proven to be very competitive with his checkers.

The hospital was lonely without Harry, although she would never have admitted it to him. The other kids never talked unless she spoke to them first. There were fewer of them, too, than there used to be; Eva had also left. Occasionally there were visiting children whose parents had taken them to Curnow in order to find out more about their condition. They were usually recently bitten and even less likely to speak than James, Tristan, and Nicolas. Out of sheer boredom, Hannah made a game of forcing conversation with anyone who happened to be around on full moons.

“Why do you think we turn into wolves?” she asked Nicolas, tapping her fingers in the way he hated on the frame of Rose’s sofa.

“Because we got bitten,” said Nicolas, glaring. “Quit it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Hannah, still tapping away. “I mean, why not some other animal? The moon comes up and we turn into _wolves_? Why a wolf? Why not a pig or a duck or something? Who decided _that_?”

“Science,” grunted Nicolas. “Evolution, maybe.”

“I guess a wereduck wouldn’t be able to spread it,” said Hannah thoughtfully. “Because they don’t have teeth. Ducks don’t have teeth, do they? Do you think ducks have teeth, James?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it isn’t like other animals don’t have teeth, either. What about hippos? My brother Andrew told me that hippos have the biggest teeth of any animal in the world. So why aren’t there werehippos? They’d be much more interesting.”

“I’d rather be a werewolf than a werehippo,” said Nicolas.

“Also, it’s funny that it doesn’t work the other way around,” said Hannah. “Humans can get a disease where they turn into wolves, but there isn’t a disease where wolves turn into people, is there? Wait, what if it’s just that nobody’s discovered it yet?”

“What?” said James nervously.

“Well, maybe at the full moon, people are so busy worrying about werewolves that they never check on the _actual_ wolves. Maybe when the moon goes up, some of them turn into humans and spend the whole night running around naked.”

“That image is going to stay with me for the rest of my life,” said Nicolas.

“Good,” said Hannah.

She spelled her name in Morse code on the back of the sofa. H-A-N-N-A-H.

She tried as hard as she could to think about werehippos and wolf-people after Rose locked her up to make herself laugh, but it didn’t work very well. Without Harry to practice Morse code with, and James and Nicolas to annoy, she didn’t feel like there was much of her left. And when the wolf arrived, there wouldn’t be any of her left at all.

***

Despite what Tom and Andrew had said, Hannah liked middle school at Trevarthen. She liked the fact that she was in a smaller, cozier building all the way across the makeshift forest. She liked the wooded pathway she got to walk down every morning, giving her time to catch up with Ella and Aimee and Chloe before the school day began. She liked the fact that the walk had made the four of them closer, having sleepovers almost every weekend and making up secret jokes that they could allude to in passing. She liked giggling madly when other people tried to figure out what they meant.

Hannah didn’t mind the learning part of middle school too much, either. It was exciting to have different teachers for each subject. Even the homework wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She always felt a pleasant jolt of maturity when she was able to come home, toss her backpack onto the floor, and gripe about how many assignments she’d been given that day.

“No sympathy,” said Andrew, bent over his geometry textbook. “I have forty-five math problems for tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t asking _you_ ,” said Hannah.

Andrew and Tom had made up their fight, but they were more irritable than Hannah had ever seen them. When Tom’s voice started to change, Hannah naturally mimicked him, yodeling back every sentence that came out broken. But Tom didn’t laugh once. And when Andrew brought home his study partner from his accelerated chemistry class, a pretty dark-haired girl named Kamala, he ordered Hannah to go upstairs rather than letting her stick around and tease them.

That, along with certain other changes Hannah had begun to notice in herself, convinced her that her teachers had been right about the hormones. It was way too depressing to think about, so she didn’t.

Another new thing was dances. Trevarthen’s middle school had four of them per year – one each academic quarter – and the first one took place on the night before Halloween. Nobody talked about anything else for weeks. Kieran, flushed deepest purple, asked Ella to go with him by way of a secret note in her locker. After school, girls Hannah had never spoken to flocked around Ella, begging her to tell them every last detail. Ella reveled in the attention. Hannah took mental notes.

The grown-ups were all very disapproving. “At least wait until high school,” said Katherine, Hannah’s American history teacher. “The pickings will be better then, anyway.”

But Hannah knew it wasn’t really about the “pickings”, whatever that meant. It was their first dance. Did she really expect them to want to go alone?

“Yes,” said Aimee, shaking her beaded cornrows. “People are being so silly.”

“It isn’t just to impress people,” said Hannah, sighing. “And Kieran’s not just a random boy.” (It was often difficult to explain things like this to Aimee, who never cared very much about what anyone else was doing.) “We’re not in elementary school anymore,” she added. “And maybe we might even find someone we really like at one of the dances. There’re a lot of couples who met when they were eleven, you know.”

Hannah didn’t know any, but there had to be some.

For two weeks, she waited patiently to be asked by someone – anyone. Preferably Jeremy Pryce from her gym class, with his smooth dark skin and wicked sense of humor. For two weeks, she talked to him every chance she got. She brought up the dance again and again; vaguely at first, and then completely unapologetically. But he asked Natalie Grace Pullman instead, and Hannah spent several days in a sulk. Finally, she decided it was time to take matters into her own hands.

She marched over to the lunch table across from her usual one, where a group of boys she was friendly with liked to sit.

“Who,” she said, “wants to go to the Halloween dance with me? I need a date.”

The boys gaped at her.

“We’re supposed to ask you,” said Joe. “That’s how it works.”

“Not anymore,” said Hannah firmly. “It’s the twenty-first century. Does one of you want to go with me?”

“Well,” said Sean. “Wasn’t Connor saying something about that? I mean, I’ll go with you if you want, but I’m pretty sure Connor mentioned –”

“Yeah,” said Connor quickly. “Yeah, I did. You want to go to the dance with me, Hannah? I’ll go with you. No problem.”

He gave her a wide, goofy grin. The other boys whooped.

Connor still picked his nose – Hannah had seen him – but that was only sometimes, and he was nice, and she didn’t want to be too choosy.

“Cool,” she said. “I’ll meet you in front of the gym, then.”

***

The October full moon rose a week before Halloween, and David had finally gotten his hands on the Moon Pill. Hannah took it every day from the new moon onward. It was so big that it scraped her throat going down, and it tasted the way mold smelled.

They made her come to the hospital several hours early, to talk the plan through. Hannah didn’t want to be there. She had gotten used to full moon days lying on the sofa, watching old black-and-white movies that Aunt Marissa sent in the mail, eating as much bacon as her mother would agree to make her. She did not appreciate having her routine messed with.

“Have you had any side effects, Hannah?” said Rose.

“What?” said Hannah vaguely.

“From the Moon Pill,” explained her mother. “She’s had headaches, especially at first, but so far, giving her ibuprofen has seemed to do the trick, and she hasn’t been getting them as much lately. She’s also had some trouble sleeping. That worries me a little more, since she needs as many hours as she can get at this age. But Max thinks it’ll taper off the way the headaches have.”

“Anything to add to that, Hannah?”

“No,” said Hannah, rolling her eyes. She crossed her arms and went back to looking out the window. She knew that her mother was giving Rose a _look at my difficult adolescent_ face, and she knew Rose was giving her a sympathetic one back. She didn’t care.

“Right, then,” said Rose. “Well, you’re the only one out of our regular three to be trying the Moon Pill this month. James’ and Nicolas’ parents have opted to wait until the trial ends in December, so you’re going to be a bit of a pioneer today! That said, we’ve got a lot to discuss beforehand, since we’ll need to keep a special eye on you tonight. Do you want your mum around for that, or do you want me to talk to you on your own?”

“I want my mom to go.”

Hannah’s mother exasperated her by looking stricken. “Are you sure, sweetie?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if you really want to be alone for this –”

“I’m not going to be alone. I’ll have Rose.”

“My big girl.”

Hannah hated it when her mother got weepy on full moons. It hadn’t happened in months, and Hannah had hoped she’d started getting used to them. Apparently not.

“See you tomorrow,” she said. She maneuvered her way around a smothering hug.

Rose gave her mother a hug, too, which irritated Hannah.

“We’re still going to have you transforming downstairs,” Rose said, once Hannah’s mother had left. “In a truly tiny percentage of cases, the Moon Pill doesn’t work at all. Or it doesn’t work well enough. While I’m almost positive that won’t be the case for you – especially as you’re still so young – it’s our job to check and make sure. And so, just in case, we need to see that you really are operating as a Type One before we let you do what Harry’s doing. Which is why I’m going to give you this.”

She held something out, which Hannah took cautiously. Hannah pressed the flat blue button on top of it. A shrill, piercing sound rang out from somewhere within Rose’s office. Hannah almost clapped her hands to her ears.

“It’s… like a pager?”

“Yes, a bit. What I want you to do – once you’re transformed and kind of settled – is I’d like you to press it. Ten times. We need to know that you’ve got your own mind for long enough to keep pushing it consistently.”

Hannah frowned down at it.

“So… like… you want me to press it with my – with the _wolf paw?_ ”

“Exactly. Think you can do that?”

Hannah squirmed.

“Yeah. I know,” said Rose. “It’s weird. But that’s the way it’s got to be. State law. Now, if you’ve managed to press it the ten times, David and I will scurry over into the room. We’ll run a few more tests, fill out a few forms, and then that’ll be that.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Just little things. I don’t think they’re really necessary, but there’s been a lot of fuss over the whole Moon Pill thing, as I’m sure you’ve heard. People don’t want to take any risks.”

“Risks?”

“It’s understandable. They want to make sure they’ll be safe. We’ll ask you to walk back and forth across the room, look us in the eye. Nothing too horrible.”

Hannah stiffened. It was all about _safe_ again. Safe behind locked doors, safe under laws that other people made, safe because Rose and David said so. It left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Sounds pretty horrible to me,” she said.

Rose sighed and sent her to the bookcase to find something to read until James, Tristan, and Nicolas showed up. It was difficult to read when her head hurt so much, but there was no chance Hannah was going to explain that to Rose. She grabbed C.S. Lewis’ _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ and looked at pictures of dragons until the boys arrived.

Eustace was lucky. At least he got to breathe fire.

***

In the beginning, everything was the same. Rose said good-bye; David locked her in; Hannah sat in the corner with her arms around her knees and a fierce need to pretend it wasn’t happening. She felt sick. She pretended it wasn’t happening. Everything ached. She pretended it wasn’t happening. Her body changed.

But then it _kept changing._ The fog that always descended over her mind never came. And then the stretching and pulling and reshaping stopped, and got slower, and stopped again, and then it felt like everything had stopped. Except that Hannah was still there.

Sort of.

She looked down at the wolf paws beneath her. She had never seen them before, not for longer than a few seconds. The nose was strange, too – long and stubbly and sticking straight out, blocking a good chunk of her vision. She had to shift strangely in order to get a look at her tail, but of course she had one of those, too – dark and bristly. She curled her tongue up inside her mouth and felt her teeth. They were very sharp.

She spent a few minutes moving experimentally around. Wolves were short. It was kind of like being a hairy dwarf with four legs.

Eventually Hannah remembered the pager and wandered reluctantly over to it. The idea of Rose and David examining her in this state had become even less appealing than it had been before. It wasn’t like she was _embarrassed_ or anything – it wasn’t like she could _help_ it – but she wouldn’t be able to say anything to them, and for some reason that bothered her a lot.

She pressed the pager ten times. Rose and David came in. Hannah walked back and forth across the room and looked them in the eye. They nodded and left her alone.

After that, Hannah got bored quickly. There was only so much you could do when there was _nothing_ to do. What was more, she had realized that the sounds she had taken at first for some kind of weird basement plumbing was actually all the other Type Three werewolves howling from within their confines. It made her feel embarrassed for them. She didn’t like to think about Nicolas and little James spending a whole night doing that.

So she tried to sleep. But it didn’t work very well. It wasn’t possible as a wolf to curl up on her side in the way that she was used to. She had to wrap her tail around herself and twist her head into it, like wolves in the wild.

When the sun rose – not that Hannah could see it – she changed back, which she had been curious about, since she’d never had her mind for that part. Unsurprisingly, it hurt.

Then Rose and David came back and it was over and Hannah didn’t have to think about it again for another month.

“It worked!” said her father. “Isn’t that exciting?”

“Sure,” said Hannah.

She lay on the sofa and watched full-color movies and made him bring her waffles.

***

Hannah insisted on an orange dress for the Halloween dance. It took her and Ella three hours and six stores before they found one, but Hannah was more than satisfied with it. It was covered in gold glitter and had flounces in the skirt.

“It’s too much,” said Tom, frowning at Hannah as she got ready. “And it’s too long. Almost all the girls wear dresses that go above their knees.”

“Ha,” said Hannah, trying to French-braid her hair with little success. “You just don’t like dances because nobody would dance with you at your last one. Andrew told me. Tom and Patricia, sitting in a tree… K-I-S-S-I-N… oops, except _not_ …”

It was a very good thing that Hannah’s mother appeared to fix her hair when she did.

Hannah was dropped off in front of the woodland path with Ella. Neither of them had told their parents about their dates. They were sure to get just like the teachers about it – and Hannah knew that if her mother knew, it was only a matter of time before her brothers did, too, and that was something she wanted to avoid at all costs.

Kieran was on time – with a bouquet of flowers for Ella – but Connor was late, and Hannah was forced to wait outside the gym, tapping her toes for a full fifteen minutes before he showed up. He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans that were only a little less wrinkled than they normally were. He hadn’t brought any flowers, but Hannah decided that was okay. Kieran had known Ella for longer, after all.

Their class had voted for an _Alice in Wonderland_ theme rather than a generic Halloween one, and the gym had been utterly transformed, covered with all kinds of brightly colored decorations. A giant papier-mâché rabbit’s head hung from the ceiling, bedazzled with sequins. Elaborate murals depicting dodos, the Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter’s tea party had been painted on massive sheets of brown paper and hung on every wall. Each plastic cup of punch at the food table had a little sticker saying “drink me” and every cookie had “eat me” written on it in frosting. The music was louder than Hannah had ever been allowed to hear it, and every cell in her body wanted to dance.

“Come _on_ ,” she said to Connor, dragging him by the hand.

But he didn’t seem especially interested in dancing. As Hannah tugged him closer to the center of the gym, where a crowd of people were hopping up and down with their hands in the air, he kept turning awkwardly to look at what everyone else was doing.

Harry gave her a sympathetic look. He and Chloe and Aimee had gone as a trio, and _they_ had been dancing since before Connor arrived.

“You just have to wave your arms around a little,” Hannah hissed at him. “My brothers told me. It’s supposed to be fun.”

Connor sighed, but he seemed to make somewhat of an effort after that.

Hannah had an excellent half hour dancing partly with Connor and partly with the people squashed in around her. She felt like everyone had changed a little from the people she saw at school. They were livelier, more prone to laughter, and yet slightly mysterious all the same. It took Hannah a few minutes to realize that the girl in the silver dress and the boy with the slicked-back hair ate lunch in the cafeteria with her every day.

After a while, the music stopped so that the teacher acting as the DJ could take a break. Everyone stampeded over to the food table. Connor squeezed into the crowd and emerged with four cupcakes. He handed Hannah two. That was better, she thought. He did have a chivalrous side after all.

“Want to eat these outside?” he said. “I’m getting kind of overheated in here.”

Hannah’s dress was lightweight and sleeveless, and she loved the way the usually spacious gym was packed so tightly with people, but she nodded and followed him out into the hallway. Maybe he was an introvert, like Andrew. Hannah knew that introverts didn’t like to be around too many people at once.

They ended up on one of the park benches a few yards outside the middle school entrance. Neither of them said anything as they ate their cupcakes. When they were finished, Connor took Hannah’s hand. Hannah wasn’t sure she liked it, since his hand was still sweaty from his vague attempts at dancing, but she let him. It was romantic, after all.

“Hannah,” said Connor, “do you think – I mean, since we went to the dance together and everything. I think maybe – I might –”

“What?” said Hannah eagerly.

“I’m supposed to kiss you,” mumbled Connor.

“You’re not supposed to do anything,” said Hannah, nettled. “That’s not how it works. You should only do stuff if you _want_ to do them.”

“Well… _can_ I kiss you?”

Hannah thought for a minute. “Sure,” she said.

So he did – a very light, quick tapping of his lips on Hannah’s. She was disappointed to discover that it didn’t feel much different from kissing her parents or brothers. But Connor wasn’t her parents or brothers. He was a _boy_.

“That was my first kiss,” she said to Connor, beaming.

“Mine too.” His cheeks were scarlet.

“Well, it was very sweet,” said Hannah firmly. “Should we go back to the gym now? Ella’s sisters said they always save the best songs until the end.”

“Yeah,” said Connor. He couldn’t seem to stop blushing. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

He was even worse at dancing then that he had been the first time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed playing with the "Wonderland" metaphor here, thinking about all the different things that can transform people as they move from childhood into adulthood. Obviously, for Hannah, that's more literal than it is for most people. The Moon Pill is also very "eat me"/"drink me," I think.


	7. Too Sharp

Transforming at home, Hannah’s parents insisted, meant having a family meeting about it. Everyone was called to the dining room table. Hannah sat stone-faced, her arms crossed and eyebrows down.

“Han gets to call the shots,” said her father. “I want to make that very clear. What Hannah says tonight – with our guidance, of course – is what goes tomorrow. From now on, full moons are going to be _her_ nights, and I want to make them as easy for her as we can. Got that, boys?”

There were some nods and some groans. Hannah liked the groans better.

“Now. I want to ensure that every single one of us knows what the plan is. You boys and Mom and I know that all of us are going to be perfectly safe. But there might be some people around the neighborhood who have the wrong idea. And so we need to make sure that we’re on the same page at all times.”

“Why would people think we’re not safe?” said Moe.

Her mother’s face tightened. “Moe, please –”

“They think I might bite them,” Hannah explained. “They think I might go crazy and storm through the neighborhood and kill everyone. They’re scaredy-cats.”

“Could you, if you wanted to?” said Moe, his eyes shining. “Kill them, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Hannah. “Do you think I could, Gulliver?”

“Hannah Penelope – he’s only _five_ –”

“Five and one-fourth!” cried Moe.

“Excuse me,” said her father.

“Of course you could,” said Gulliver. “Because wolves have super sharp teeth. If a robber comes in the night, you can stop him from stealing my Nintendo.”

“I need everyone to listen up.”

“But you’re not _going_ to kill anyone, are you, Han?” said Moe.

“Well,” said Hannah, smiling at him, “I’ll try not to.”

Her mother glanced upwards and winced, as though there was something overhead that none of the rest of them could see.

“ _Everybody be quiet and listen_ ,” said her father. He cleared his throat and stood up.

His face was impassive, but his eyes were deadly serious. Hannah’s father hardly ever looked like that, but when he did, it made her chest clench.

“I don’t want any more talking unless you’re invited to talk,” he said to Hannah and her brothers. “This is exactly what I meant. I do _not_ want to hear anything else about biting, or killing, or –”

“Robbers?” said Gulliver hopefully.

“There aren’t going to be any robbers,” said Hannah’s father. “We’re going to have a quiet, peaceful evening tomorrow. Hannah is not going to be a danger to anyone – _anyone_ , do you understand? And I need you to correct anyone who thinks that she might be. Neighbors, friends, teachers –”

“But what if there _is_ a robber?” said Moe. “If there was, then Hannah could –”

“No. She could not. If there’s a robber – and there won’t be – Mom and I will deal with it. Now, I want to go over the plan.”

Hannah’s father explained all the things that Hannah already knew. The moon would rise at 7:20 that evening, so none of her brothers would be in bed yet. Hannah would transform in private in her father’s study. Nobody was to bother her during that time.

After ten minutes, Hannah’s parents would come in and check that the Moon Pill had worked. This was only a formality, since by now, Hannah had tested it on three separate occasions with Rose and David. But as Rose constantly reminded her, laws were laws, and they had to be observed.

Once her parents had entered the study, the rest of the evening would be up to Hannah.

“What do you mean, up to me?” said Hannah.

“You get to decide how you want to do this. You can stay in the study and rest by yourself if you want. Or you can go somewhere else.”

Hannah scowled. “I didn’t realize we needed to _plan_ where I was going to be in the _house._ ”

“We just – we thought you might prefer not to be disturbed,” said her mother. “We can tell the boys to stay away from wherever you’d like to be.”

“Or let them in, if you’d rather have company,” said her father.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Hannah. Then she had a sudden inspiration. “Could I decide later, though? It’s just that I was going to call Aimee about our science project. It’s worth like, half our grade, and it looks really complicated –”

“We have the whole family here right now, you’re transforming tomorrow night, _and_ I happen to know you have an extension on that project until Monday. I’d say now’s the best time, Han.”

Everyone in her family was watching her. Hannah had a strange, savage desire to stand on her chair and throw something hard against the wall, so that their eyes would move to whatever she’d broken instead. She looked around at the possibilities. Her father’s coffee cup? The vase of flowers on the table?

“I guess I want to be in the living room,” she muttered. “Because then maybe I could watch a movie.”

“You’ll probably want to choose what to watch in advance,” said her mother. “That way, Dad and I can get it started for you, so you won’t have to worry about the remote.”

“I could probably still use the remote,” said Hannah indignantly.

“Well, you certainly won’t be able to handle the DVD player.”

“How do _you_ know?”

“Han, be logical –”

“I don’t want to be logical.”

“Can we come in and see you?” said Gulliver eagerly.

“I’m not sure she’s going to want –” said her mother.

Hannah gave her mother a deliberate stare. “They can come in,” she said. “It’s fine with me.”

“Are you sure?” said her mother. “I mean, it’s not my decision to make. But if I were you, I really don’t think I’d want them running all over the place and getting under my feet.”

“But you’re not me,” said Hannah. “So it’s fine.”

***

Hannah hated transforming in the study. It was one thing to do it in a place where everybody else had to go through it, too. It was another to be doing it at home, where her parents might easily be listening at the door.

Still, she couldn’t stop it from happening, and when it did happen – after the pain faded and she was able to distinguish her mind from her surroundings again – she jumped onto her mother’s desk chair and waited for her parents there. That way, she thought, she’d feel _slightly_ taller than she had with Rose and David. Also, the jumping was fun. Hannah hadn’t realized before how good wolves were at jumping.

She spent a few minutes doing tiny, awkward leaps on the desk chair, and then her parents came in.

They entered in a stumble. Her mother’s face had gone pale, and she was shaking visibly, although Hannah could tell she was trying to hide it by the way her teeth were gritted. Her father’s chin was tilted up and his hands were clenched over his stomach. Hannah attempted a lazy wave, but wolves didn’t wave very well, and she almost fell off the chair.

“Hannah,” said her mother softly. “Hannah, can you hear me?”

“Just give us a nod or something,” said her father. “Rose said you’d probably be able to do that.”

A nod was going to look even stupider than a wave, but Hannah supposed she had no choice. She lowered her head and then looked back up.

Her stomach curdled. There were _tears_ in her mother’s eyes. For _heaven’s_ sake! Hannah glared at her and tried to make it obvious that she disapproved, but she couldn’t have done a very good job, because her parents missed it completely.

“Give us one more nod, Hannah?” said her father.

Hannah grudgingly obeyed.

“Then I’ll start your DVD for you,” said her father. “Just give me a minute.”

“And you’re absolutely sure you want your brothers in there with you?” said her mother.

Hannah gave one more stupid nod. She wondered if maybe she growled instead, her parents would run away and she wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. But then she wouldn’t be able to watch TV. She’d just have to sit there all night, achy and bored out of her mind.

“We told the boys to stay upstairs until we came to get them,” said her father. “Just in case you changed your mind. But since you haven’t, we’ll grab them in a few minutes. Are you going to be able to get down from that chair by yourself?”

Hannah hopped off in answer and found herself level with her parents’ knees.

The owners of the knees opened the door and let her out, and then they turned on the DVD she had chosen. It was an old box set about an alien from a distant planet who had terrible social skills and a long-suffering human girlfriend. Hannah had picked it out on the grocery store discount shelf the previous morning, because it had looked like it was going to be funny, nonsensical, and not about real life.

Her parents watched her as she jumped up on the couch. The theme song started. They kept watching her. Hannah stared straight ahead. The alien started trying to land his spaceship with disastrous results.

“I’ll go tell the boys?” said her father to her mother.

“You’re _sure_ , Hannah?” said her mother.

The first thing she was going to tell them when she turned back was that they had to stop making her nod all the time.

Feet crashed down the stairwell. The noise hurt Hannah’s ears. She whimpered a little without thinking meaning to. Her mother looked at her as if she’d just screamed a string of expletives.

“She’s a wolf!” cried Gulliver. “She really turned into a wolf, you guys!”

Tom came in behind him. He met Hannah’s eyes and then, to her vast relief, he grinned.

“She’s also taking up all the space on the couch,” he said. “Are we going to let her get away with that?”

 _“No!”_ cried Gulliver and Moe gleefully.

“She’s probably in pain,” said their mother. “Transformation takes a huge toll on the body. We have plenty of cushions you boys can put on the floor –”

Hannah stretched the wolf’s body out until it covered the entire span of the sofa, despite her sore back. She stuck her tongue out experimentally – it seemed that was still something she could do. Even if it looked more like she was panting than being deliberately annoying.

“ _Move it,_ dogface,” said Tom, sitting on her feet.

“ _Tom,_ ” said her mother and Andrew at the same time, sounding equally appalled.

“She stuck her tongue out at me!” said Tom. “She was asking for it.”

Hannah grinned the best she could.

Then all the youngest boys jumped on top of Tom, which meant that they also jumped on top of Hannah, which hurt a lot, but she pretended it didn’t. Gulliver squealed and touched her nose. Her father barked at him to move his hand away, because it was too near her teeth. Hannah flashed her jaws at him, which sent the boys into bursts of giggles and her parents into shocked silence.

“You’re grounded for a month if you do that again,” said her father, not quite looking at Hannah. “Ever.”

Since wolves couldn’t talk, it was impossible for them to be sarcastic. It was a problem that Hannah would have to solve as soon as possible. Otherwise she would never be able to stand it.

At some point everyone went to bed, and her father turned off the alien show (with a look of relief), and then it was just Hannah, alone in the living room, staring at the place in the window where the full moon shone. Her mother tucked a blanket over her before she went upstairs. Hannah thought about kicking it off, but she didn’t.

She knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, and so she didn’t try. Instead, she played a game with the wolf’s nose, trying to tease out different smells from each other, deciding what had made each of them. There was the smell of the horrible new cologne Tom had started using. The plastic cover of Gulliver’s toy racecar. The garbage can, even though it was in all the way in the kitchen. Everything _stank_ on the full moon.

In the morning, Hannah wrapped the blanket around herself and staggered up to her room before anyone could speak to her. It was easier for everyone that way.

***

Hannah couldn’t sleep that night, either. She spent a long time staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. They had been bought in the Curnow Hospital gift shop, and she hadn’t wanted them very much. They barely glowed at all – just emitted a soft, dimly yellow haze.

It was like her family was _wrong_ , Hannah thought. There had been something wrong for a long time, but it had been small enough to ignore. Now it was staring Hannah in the face, and she couldn’t look away. Something had changed, and she didn’t know what it was. It was almost as if moving to Curnow had set some kind of mysterious force into motion – something that was only going to grow. But she couldn’t put a name to it.

She gave up on sleep, put on her slippers, and tiptoed downstairs. The new house had a few stairs that squeaked, but her brothers were notoriously heavy sleepers, so she wasn’t worried. She went into the kitchen and found a box of Oreos in the pantry. Grabbing a handful and wrapping them in a paper towel, she moved into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

Only what she sat on wasn’t a couch cushion – it felt suspiciously like someone’s feet. Hannah gave a yelp and investigated further. It was Tom, fast asleep on the couch.

Something about Hannah sitting on his legs must have woken him up. His head jerked upwards and suddenly he was staring at her, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” said Hannah.

“Andrew and I had a fight.”

“So you didn’t even want to sleep in your _room?_ ”

“You don’t have to share a room,” said Tom. “It doesn’t work when you’re mad at someone. Especially when they won’t speak to you.”

“Andrew won’t speak to you?”

“No.”

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

“No.”

“Are you going to make up?”

Tom hesitated. “Probably. At some point.”

“You have to make up,” said Hannah. “Twins are supposed to be best friends.”

“Ugh, Hannah, it doesn’t work that way. Not anymore, not when you’re older. Look. Andrew and I – he doesn’t understand. You’re in middle school now; you get it – middle school is different. You have to do things differently. But Andrew only wants to do things his way. He doesn’t even try.”

“What things?” said Hannah. “What doesn’t he try?”

“It’s complicated,” said Tom. “It’s just the way things work. You have to be a part of a group to be part of the school. And Andrew won’t. People make fun of him.”

“Well then, you should tell them to stop!”

“I can’t,” said Tom. “There’s no way they’d listen to me.”

Hannah turned this over in her mind. It didn’t make sense. If there was one thing she knew, it was that when people didn’t want to listen, you had to _make_ them. You had to keep going until they couldn’t fail to hear you. Tom knew this – Hannah knew he did. Tom was the one who had taught it to her in the first place.

“Is that why he’s mad at you?”

“That’s why he’s mad at me,” said Tom.

They didn’t speak for a few minutes. Hannah toyed with the idea of turning on the TV, but there was always the chance that it might wake her parents, who already grumbled about the amount of TV Hannah watched. She sighed dramatically, because a dramatic sigh sounded better in the echoey stillness of the living room at night. She tapped her toes. She worked on peeling off the edge of her littlest fingernail.

“Hannah?” said Tom quietly. “Um. What’s it like? Being a –”

“What?” said Hannah.

“You know. Having lycanthropy.”

The instant sense of betrayal in the pit of Hannah’s stomach hurt. Could she pretend, later on, that he hadn’t said that? She thought she probably could.

“It’s fine,” she said glumly.

“Really?” said Tom. “Because… it’s just that, I mean, Mom and Dad… they act like… and everyone at school, too, you know? You’re sure? It’s really, definitely okay?”

“ _Yes,_ ” said Hannah.

“Good,” said Tom.

They sat on the sofa for a while longer, and then Hannah went upstairs to bed.

***

Summer came, and with it, the unbearable heat that still felt to Hannah like an invisible stranger was choking her. Her mother wanted to sign her up for camp, but Hannah said no.

“Ella’s going,” her mother pointed out. “That kayaking camp in the woods. For three whole weeks. It doesn’t conflict with the moon, and I’d have thought you’d _want_ to get out of here for a while. No brothers getting in your space – a break from this God-awful weather –”

“What makes you think you know what I want?” said Hannah.

Something showed in her mother’s eyes that sent a guilty pang into Hannah’s chest, though she evicted it at once.

“I guess,” said her mother. “It’s the best I can do. But I do think it would be good for you.”

“It wouldn’t. It would be good for me to lie in the sun and eat popsicles and sleep really late and not be told what to do by counselors with whistles around their necks.”

Her mother threw up her hands. “Suit yourself.” She turned her back and headed to the kitchen to make dinner.

Hannah watched her go. For a strange moment, she thought she saw something dark and strangely gauzy trailing behind her. But then she blinked, and the image was gone.

“I’m not going,” she said, and thankfully, that was the end of it.

And so she had the summer to herself. At twelve, she was old enough to walk around the neighborhood alone, and since Curnow was essentially one big neighborhood, this meant that she could visit her friends whenever she liked.

Because Harry had a large, air-conditioned basement with comfortable leather couches and a big-screen TV, his house soon became their home base. At least four days a week, she, Harry, Aimee, Kieran, and Chloe would sit shoulder to shoulder on the sofas and luxuriate in the fact that they had nothing more important to do than chat and watch movies. Occasionally, Connor decided to join them, and on those days, time passed more slowly, because he always wanted more of Hannah’s attention than she felt like giving him – but she tried her best to be nice.

Later, other people began to trickle in, people Hannah wouldn’t have suspected she would get to know and like. There was Min, who had been new that year and told the most amazing stories about having lived in Ghana and South Korea. There was Ross, who hardly said a word at school, but turned out to be one of the funniest people Hannah had ever met. And there was Seb, dark-eyed and clever – and on whom, Harry whispered to Hannah one day, he had a crush.

“You like _boys_?” said Hannah. “You never told me that before.”

“Yeah,” said Harry in one breath. “But could you, um – could you not tell anyone, please? I mean, I feel like other people – they might not understand. At least not until we’re older, and I don’t want them to think –”

“You care about what they _think_?” said Hannah, still gawking.

“I just don’t want people to say things,” Harry mumbled. “Or think things. Because maybe they don’t understand. And I want to wait until they do.”

Hannah blinked rapidly. “But you’re the one who doesn’t _care_ about what people think!”

“What do you mean, I don’t care?”

“ _You_ were the one who said to ignore – I mean, you _said_ – I thought none of that mattered to you! _You said_ – and it’s so stupid, Harry! So _stupid!_ ”

He looked at her calmly, in that Harry way that had been quietly annoying since the day she had met him. “I’m stupid because I want people to like me?”

Hannah crossed her arms. Betrayed-feeling bubbles were rising in her chest and threatening to pop. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you are.”

“I think Seb likes me, too,” said Harry softly.

“ _Good,_ ” said Hannah. “Then I hope you go to the Halloween dance with him and I hope everybody finds out and I hope you see that we all love you, because you’re being a stupid _idiot_ , Harry Lucas, and if you keep being stupid you’re just going to get even stupider, and I don’t want a stupid idiot for a best friend.”

It was the mildest thing she could come up with to say. He was the one who had shown her in the first place that it didn’t _matter_ about being a werewolf, that it didn’t matter what people might think –

“I’m your best friend?” said Harry, as if he hadn’t heard the rest of it.

“I don’t know,” said Hannah gruffly. “I thought you were.”

“Well, you’re mine,” said Harry, “and I’m sorry if I’m being a stupid idiot.”

“Don’t apologize. That only makes you sound worse.”

He smiled. Hannah punched him in the arm. And that meant they were allowed to talk about other things.

Hannah couldn’t help being annoyed, though. He was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. She would have never expected that of Harry.

***

Seventh grade was much like sixth, except for one addition: Supernatural Smarts. While Tom and Andrew had begun Supernatural Smarts classes back in Wisconsin, Trevarthen students didn’t start until they were twelve.

“They used to do it earlier,” said Ella. “But a girl in my sister Ava’s class started having nightmares, and her parents were really important lawyers or something, so Trevarthen almost got sued. She had to change schools.” She grinned. “They say she was never the same again.”

This story made Hannah look forward to Supernatural Smarts even more than she had before. She anticipated it eagerly until the day of their first class, imagining discussions about hydras and huldras and hedley kows and other things she’d only ever seen on the news before her mother hurriedly turned it off.

But Hannah was soon disappointed. Supernatural Smarts turned out to be almost exactly like the classes on puberty she’d had to take in fifth grade, except that the subject matter was different. And Trevarthen seventh graders didn’t even _get_ to learn about the more dangerous creatures – maybe because of Ella’s story, that part was reserved for high schoolers. Instead, their American studies teacher, Warren, droned on and on about things Hannah had heard about since childhood. A few things were new, like the way dust spirits could create quicksand if the conditions were right and how you always had to be hospitable to a brownie, but since Hannah didn’t live in the Sahara or the Scottish Highlands, she found herself gazing out the window for most of these lectures.

Towards the end of March, however, Warren announced a field trip that didn’t sound boring at all.

“We’re going to an eidolon farm,” he said. “We haven’t learned about eidolons yet, and that’s because I need you all to take them far more seriously than anything else we’ve studied this year. Eidolons aren’t threatening – I don’t want you to get that idea – but they _are_ found all over the world, and you’re at the age where you’re starting to become susceptible to them. We want to make sure that if you ever see one outside an eidolon farm, you’ll know what to do. And you won’t get a shock, which is really the most important thing as far as eidolons are concerned.”

Eidolon farms, Hannah knew, were places where all the worst kinds of supernatural creatures were rounded up and locked away so that they couldn’t hurt anyone. They always had more eidolons than anything else, since they were so widespread, and they’d become famous for that, even though eidolons were less dangerous than anything else the farms contained. They weren’t like zoos, because not everybody could go and see them. You had to get permission, and if you were under eighteen, you had to come with an adult. Hannah had never been to an eidolon farm before.

Her mother’s face tightened when Hannah showed her the permission form, but she signed it. “Don’t bring an eidolon home as a pet, okay? I can’t stand them.”

“Wait, have you _seen_ one before?” said Hannah enthusiastically. “Outside of an eidolon farm?”

“Help me with dinner,” said her mother. And she wouldn’t elaborate, no matter how hard Hannah tried to make her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do want to be really clear here that Hannah is wrong about Harry, who has every right to decide when he feels ready to come out. Hannah certainly isn't right about everything. And in this case, her personal feelings about what she is and how Harry interprets that are superseding her ability to be fully empathetic.
> 
> Harry knows that, though (even if Hannah doesn't). There's a reason they're such good friends.


	8. Cycles

Pendoggett Farm was dark, noisy, and full of cages. The “farm” part of its name had left Hannah expecting green pastures and creatures roaming free behind wire netting – but this was nothing like that. The place resembled the aquarium Hannah had visited on a school trip to Baltimore, only quieter, colder, emptier. The kind of empty that made Hannah feel like something bad was going to happen.

An _exciting_ kind of bad, she told herself. This wasn’t another one of Warren’s lectures. This was real.

Hannah squinted through glass at a pair of dust spirits. They glowered at her from between mounds of sand, their red eyes fierce and sinister slits.

“They don’t look too happy back there, do they?”

Harry had appeared behind her. He frowned at the dust spirits, his lips pursed. They frowned back, grinning; Harry started and stepped away.

“No,” Hannah agreed. “But they’re evil, aren’t they? They’re probably never happy unless they’re hurting people. Like Warren said, this is the best place for them.”

They moved on, stopping every few feet to examine the way various creatures reacted to being trapped in five-by-ten-foot Plexiglas cages. Two brownies – rare finds outside of Scotland – had been placed side-by-side. One was given porridge on a regular basis and the other was not. Hannah marveled at how they could even be considered the same creature – the yowling, spitting, snarling ball of fur to the left was nothing like its neighbor, who was happily sweeping up a dust bunny it had found in the corner of its cage.

A few steps onward, they spotted a vampire, curled up in its bat form and hanging from the ceiling of its enormous enclosure, which had been brightly lit from all sides with ultraviolet lightbulbs. A plaque told them that the vampire had become humanoid only once during its captivity, and that was to murder a large rat that had managed to burrow into its space. Connor tapped on the glass and tried to tempt it with a scratch he’d received in P.E. a few days before. The vampire yawned and wrapped its wings more tightly around itself.

Hannah had just reached the cage of the hedley kow, which was mooing in a way that looked fascinatingly agitated, when Warren called the class back to the front of the room. He was standing beside a hard-faced woman in a gray uniform. Something about her made Hannah’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

“That’s all the time we have to explore today,” Warren said. “If you’re curious about any of the creatures you saw in the last twenty minutes, I’d encourage you to ask your parents about them when you get home. For now, I’m putting you in the capable hands of Candice, who works in the eidolon wing.”

The woman – Candice – nodded, silencing the chatter of Hannah’s class. “Warren tells me you haven’t studied eidolons yet,” she said. “Could I see a show of hands from everyone who knows what they are and what they do?”

Min raised a hand; so did Jeremy Pryce and a girl who sat in front of Hannah in pre-algebra. But they were the only people who did.

“That’s pretty typical,” said Candice. “Most people don’t start noticing them until they’re about your age. A lot of adults also tend to be afraid of them – unnecessarily, as I’ll explain, but that fear is there. And it’s been my experience that people don’t like to talk about the things they’re afraid of.” She cleared her throat. “For those of you who _do_ know about eidolons, who told you?”

“My dad,” said Min. “He had a problem with them back when I was little.”

“Same,” said Jeremy Pryce, “except it was my mom.”

“ _I_ saw one,” said the girl in Hannah’s math class. “Walking home after school one day. It followed me for a while.”

“Again, that’s typical,” said Candice. “At your age, it’s usually only people with direct experience who know very much about eidolons. For now, I’d like you to put whatever knowledge you have in the back of your mind and follow me to the eidolon wing.”

She took them through a door behind the brownie cages and into a dim, dank-smelling hallway. For the second time, a sharp, unexpected sense of discomfort worked its way into Hannah’s stomach – but she told herself this was a good thing. It was supposed to be scary.

After a few minutes, they reached an enormous steel door with three padlocks holding it shut. Candice used a set of keys that were dangling around her neck and let them in.

At first glance, the room appeared pitch black. Even so, Hannah could tell it was much larger than the room they’d started out in, because of the way her classmates’ voices echoed as they whispered to each other. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed what looked like a vast, glinting cloud hovering just below the ceiling.

“There,” said Candice, pointing at it. “Those are eidolons.”

As though it was following her finger, the cloud suddenly dissipated. Individual wisps of it swooped downward to hover just above the class’s heads. A few of Hannah’s classmates yelped and ducked. Hannah crossed her arms and tried to examine the eidolons more closely. They didn’t look like any living creature she’d ever seen before. They didn’t even have faces.

“Now,” said Candice calmly, “as you can see, eidolons are pretty visible in this kind of darkness. However, most of them don’t live locked away like this. Most of the eidolons in the world are floating around outside – maybe above your school, or your neighborhood, or your local grocery store. Anywhere and everywhere.”

Ira raised a hand. “Then how come I’ve never seen one before?”

“Usually, they’re translucent – hard to spot,” said Candice. “But they darken as they get closer to people. They’re close enough to us now that they really should be darker, except that we keep them weak here at Pendoggett, which forces them to stay a little ways away. Although they _have_ sensed that we’re here.”

They swarmed nearer, making wavy, excited movements. Hannah stared, fascinated. It was like seeing smoke dance.

“I’m going to pull them down in a minute,” Candice continued. “There’s only one way to do that, and most people do it accidentally. Eidolons are attracted by only one thing, and that’s the chemicals your body releases when you’re afraid of something. Pheromones – but that’s science. You don’t have to know science to know eidolons. Wait and watch.”

She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut.

For a moment, very little happened. The cloud of eidolons lowered a little, hovered, then lowered again. But as Candice’s eyes stayed closed and her hands clenched into fists, the cloud’s movements changed.

If before the eidolons looked like smoke, they now resembled a heavy, dark arrow. With what looked like the thickest, most corporeal eidolon at the forefront, the cloud rocketed towards Candice, engulfing her shoulders and chest. The darkness of the eidolons made her look sinister, like a head hanging in midair above a waist and a pair of legs, her upper body entirely absent.

Candice opened her eyes, unclenched her fists, and smiled. The eidolons swirled around her, like leaves in a breeze.

“There you have it,” she said. “That’s what eidolons do. That’s _all_ eidolons can do. If an eidolon’s looking for something to feed off of, and you have the bad luck to be walking around beneath it, and you _also_ have the bad luck to be worrying about something, then there’s a good chance it’s going to come hang out with you for a while, just like these are doing. What I did, just there? I had to think hard about something I was worried about – devote all my attention to it – make it the most important thing on my mind. Otherwise, the eidolons were going to leave me pretty much alone.”

Hannah gazed at the swaying cluster of eidolons. Something tugged at the edges of her memory, although she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was.

“What were you worrying about?”

Candice shook her head. “I can’t tell you. Talking to people about your worries – being open about them – tends to make them dissipate faster. If I ever got to a point where I could do that, I could lose my job. I couldn’t give demonstrations like this anymore.”

Aimee raised a hand. “You said a lot of grown-ups are afraid of eidolons. If they only sort of… drift on you, why are they so scared? They don’t really _do_ anything, right?”

Candice gave an odd-sounding sigh. “I think it can be hard to explain. You guys are twelve, right? Thirteen? People tend to understand better after they’ve finished high school. The thing is… you can get caught in these cycles. One day you’re just doing your everyday thing, and then something happens to make you _worry_. And then maybe an eidolon finds you, feeds off that worry.

“The best thing to do, of course – the most effective thing – is to ignore the eidolon. To just keep going about your business. But because you can _see_ it… because there’s a visual reminder of what you’re afraid of… one that follows you wherever you go… it’s much harder to calm yourself down. And so you worry more. And the eidolon feeds off of that new worry, and maybe invites some friends.”

“And then you might start to worry that the eidolon will never go away,” added Warren. “And when that happens, the eidolon will often move in closer – wrap itself around your arms, or your neck. And they start to take up more and more of your thoughts. Until they control your life completely.”

“Not too long ago, we had a man come in who had been haunted by eidolons for over sixteen years,” said Candice. “They were all he thought about. He’d lost his friends… estranged himself from his family. It was terrible to watch.”

“What happened to the man?” said Seb.

“They’re still haunting him,” said Candice quietly. “We’re getting him help, but – I think it’ll be a long process.”

There was a short silence. Hannah, like her classmates, fixed her eyes on the eidolons, who were still flittering around Candice’s torso.

“So they are dangerous,” said Harry at last. “Sort of. They won’t hurt you by themselves. But they might make you hurt yourself.”

“Yes,” said Candice.

She took a long breath outward, relaxed her neck, and one by one – at a much slower speed than they had descended from – the eidolons rose back up to the ceiling.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I hope you’ll discuss what you saw with your parents or guardians tonight. And I hope you’ve learned a thing or two – although, of course, if you haven’t, at least you got a day off from school.”

Hannah found herself running ahead of her classmates as they wound back through the musty, gloomy hallway. She wasn’t sure why, but she did not want to talk about what they had just experienced. As boring as Supernatural Smarts usually was, she felt as though it had been violated, the tedious hours in Warren’s classroom replaced with something dark and disgusting. Which, she argued with herself, made no sense. They were only clouds of glittering black smoke. She had _seen_ that.

“That guy must’ve been kind of pathetic, right?” she muttered to Ella as they got on the bus. “Sixteen years thinking about nothing but eidolons?”

“Dude’s got problems,” Ella agreed.

Hannah ignored Candice’s advice and said nothing to her parents about the field trip that evening. Instead she went straight upstairs and turned on a hip-hop CD that Tom had burned for her. She danced around her room and even tried to sing, ignoring the pained protests of her brothers, who were doing homework downstairs. She kept the volume on high until dinnertime, when her family’s chatter led her thoughts elsewhere.

***

A few afternoons later, Hannah and Harry were in her basement, playing a video game they had stolen from Andrew, when Harry asked her something she had never thought much about before.

“Do you ever think about the person who bit you?” he said, navigating his way through an on-screen laboratory. “Where they are now, I mean?”

“Not really,” said Hannah blithely, and avoided an android. “I mean, what’s the point? They’re criminals, aren’t they?”

A scrap of conversation flashed into her mind. Her conversation with Tom and Andrew in the hospital, almost five years before –

_…They also talked for a long time about the wolf that bit you and where it is now and stuff. I don’t know why they care, but they definitely do. Mom even cried…_

Hannah sat up a little straighter. Her parents _had_ to know what had happened to the wolf – or the person, she supposed – who had bitten her. And yet they had never shared that information. Hannah couldn’t remember a time when the subject had even been discussed. But then again, she had never asked, either. The thought – strange as it seemed, now – had simply never occurred to her.

“You think they’re criminals?” said Harry. “I dunno. The guy who bit me… he was only in Curnow in the first place because of the hospital. He had some other problems, I’m pretty sure. Besides being a werewolf, I mean.”

“So what?” said Hannah. “He still bit you. He’s still a criminal.”

“But he didn’t _mean_ to bite me,” said Harry. Somehow he was still moving expertly through the chamber, dodging even the most determined robots. “He’s a Type Three, you know? And I think he has some trouble with social stuff, and his memory isn’t very good. He wasn’t trying to attack anybody. He was just – I don’t know, Han. None of it’s fair.”

“Not fair to _you_ , you mean,” said Hannah. Being reminded that the wolf who’d bitten Harry was a Type Three hadn’t exactly warmed her to his point of view. “If he couldn’t take care of himself, then shouldn’t somebody else have taken care of him? Watched him, to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone?”

“Maybe he didn’t have any family,” said Harry. “Or maybe they didn’t understand.”

“How _could_ you not understand? What _is_ there to not understand? There’s a guy in your family with problems, and he’s a werewolf, and he could hurt somebody if he forgets about it, which he _will_ , because he has _problems._ I wouldn’t let him out of my house.”

Harry gave her a funny look. “Hannah…”

“What?”

He sighed. “Nothing. It’s just that you can be a little black-and-white sometimes.”

Hannah threw her controller on the floor and crossed her arms. “That’s better than pretending like anybody can get away with anything as long as they have a _reason!_ If everybody thought like that, then people could just kill each other whenever they wanted, or – or – steal stuff from people’s houses whenever they needed something –”

“Robin Hood was kind of like that,” Harry pointed out. “And I know you like Robin Hood; we watched it together.”

“Robin Hood was different. He was fighting the Sheriff of Nottingham, who was _evil_ , Harry. The guy who bit you wasn’t fighting anyone, was he? He was just being stupid – and his family let him.”

“Maybe I just want to think that he’s a good person,” said Harry quietly. “Maybe I really do think that he is.”

“ _You’re_ a good person,” said Hannah. “There’s a difference.”

***

By the time Hannah started eighth grade in September, she had been taking the Moon Pill for almost a year. She grudgingly had to admit that she was grateful for it. Transforming around her parents was no less awkward than it had been the first time – they still insisted on holding family meetings every full moon, and were always twitchy and oversensitive until Hannah had recovered – but having her brothers around made her transformations easier than they had ever been before. After the first few months, none of them even blinked at the wolf version of Hannah. Even Andrew, so ill at ease in the beginning, learned to talk to Hannah as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t answer back.

They even started to have fun with the situation. Hannah knew her parents hated this – her father had gestured, wincing, to the wolf’s teeth one too many times, trying to remind her brothers what they were capable of – but she pretended she hadn’t noticed. One of the few bright sides to being a werewolf was that her parents could only discipline her so much when she was in wolf form.

Moe developed the habit of throwing random items he picked up around the house – a spoon, a shoe, a tube of sunscreen – in Hannah’s general direction. He was still young enough that he was never quite sure whether the wolf was really his sister or a stray, invited indoors one night a month. Andrew tried to explain, but Moe steadfastly ignored him.

“She’ll be back to normal in the morning. She’s not a dog; she’s not going to play fetch with you.”

“I _know_ ,” said Moe impatiently. “She’s a wolf. But maybe she still wants to play fetch.”

“Moe, she’s still _Hannah_. She just looks different.”

“But if she looks like a wolf, why can’t she play fetch with me?”

“For the same reason that you don’t chase after things all the time! She doesn’t want to. And she’s not feeling well, either. It hurts her when she turns into a wolf.”

Hannah knew Andrew meant well, but hearing him talk like this made her stomach roil. Why couldn’t he just shut up and ignore what was happening, like Tom? Was that so hard to do?

So when Moe threw a sneaker at her experimentally, tilting his head to see what would happen, Hannah caught it in one bite and pretended nothing hurt at all.

As the months wore on, Hannah’s parents stopped feeling the need to monitor her whenever she was with the boys, and that meant a new kind of freedom. They played a convoluted version of Telephone in which Hannah attempted to say phrases that were whispered in the wolf’s ear, ending up with a mangled kind of growl. Her brothers raced her up and down the hallway, a competition nobody could win, not even Tom, because the wolf’s legs moved so quickly. Once, when their parents weren’t looking, they put Moe on Hannah’s aching back, laughing together as she carried him around the house like a horse.

Hannah still had to stop at the hospital every now and then to check in with David and Rose, but it wasn’t like before. The cold cells in the hospital basement seemed like a distant memory now. She hadn’t seen James, Tristan, and Nicolas for months. She hoped that she would never see them again.

Eighth grade drew near. At Trevarthen, that meant the addition of twenty new students to Hannah’s class. To her surprise, she discovered that she was now considered one of the more seasoned students, someone who had been there long enough to know the tiniest details about the school. Warren chose her to be a tour guide to a gaggle of anxious-faced sixth graders. Hannah took on the task with undisguised glee.

She also got her period, which was an event that she greeted with considerably less enthusiasm. It was waiting for her when she woke up one Saturday morning, and she dragged herself, red-faced, into her parents’ room, so that she could whisper the news without any of her brothers overhearing. Her mother was much more excited than Hannah had hoped. She launched into a speech – worse and more detailed than anything Hannah had heard in her fifth-grade puberty classes – about what it all meant and how Hannah was physically grown-up now and could have children if she wanted to. Although she definitely _shouldn’t_ , her mother added quickly. Not for years, at least.

“I don’t want to have any kids ever,” said Hannah. “So it’s a waste of time. I wish you could just tell your body to turn it off. Make it _stop_.”

“You might change your mind someday,” said her mother, smiling.

“No,” said Hannah. “I won’t. Also, how would that even _work?”_

“What do you mean?”

“How would it work for _me_?” said Hannah impatiently. “I have stupid lycanthropy, remember? _You’re_ the one who’s always talking about it. I mean, would the baby turn into a wolf on full moons too? Or would it be like a human baby inside of a wolf? I mean, what if people thought I’d eaten it?”

Her mother looked alarmed, then tired. “Hannah –”

“And would it be a werewolf after it was born? And what if it was a full moon? That would be really awkward for the doctors, wouldn’t it? What would happen _then?”_

Hannah was promptly evicted from her parents’ room, though not before being given an exasperated hug and a pamphlet. Apparently Rose had given the pamphlet to her mother several months before. Hannah didn’t particularly want to read it, but eventually her curiosity became too strong, and she couldn’t stop herself.

She immediately wished she had just thrown it away. It was written in a condescending, sanctimonious tone, accompanied by some badly illustrated diagrams that made Hannah’s entire body cringe.

It seemed that Hannah’s first guess had been correct, that the fetuses of werewolves also transformed into wolves when the full moon rose. The pamphlet explained that this made transformation even more painful than it already was, but had never been shown to affect the child once it was born. Lycanthropy wasn’t hereditary, so after birth, children of werewolves never transformed. Births on the full moon rarely occurred – apparently werewolves’ bodies regulated these things, to make up for the transformations that they couldn’t control. It was all (according to the pamphlet) a very efficient system.

Hannah balled it up, tossed it to the other side of her room, and cursed Rose for thinking she might find it interesting. Growing up was _awful._

Still, Hannah’s eighth grade year went fairly smoothly until a blustery December evening just a few days before Christmas. The full moon hung heavily in the sky, Hannah lay curled on Tom and Andrew’s bunk bed, and everything went wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a very long time debating with myself over whether I was really going to get into the "can female werewolves have biological children if they want to?" question. But I don't think it can be avoided; puberty is puberty, and Hannah's at that age where certain information is going to get imparted whether she wants to hear it or not. So I guess my readers are going to be told about it whether they want to hear it or not, too.


	9. Numb

The gulf between Tom and Andrew had not been bridged. In fact, Hannah suspected it had grown, even though now, at fifteen years old, Tom and Andrew fought much more rarely than they had at thirteen. Or if they did fight, they did it quietly, where Hannah could not hear them.

The thought that had struck Hannah earlier – that a powerful, invisible force was moving her family in directions none of them could control – was an ever-present part of her life now. Tom and Andrew did talk to each other sometimes, but the lighthearted joking and jostling that Hannah had grown up with was gone. They still slept in the same room, but neither of them was happy about it.

“Twins are supposed to be best friends,” Hannah had told them once. She had believed it at the time.

Even Hannah felt herself being moved by the mysterious force, no matter how hard she tried to resist it. Sometimes her parents would say things – tell her that her skirt was too short, or that she needed to remember to bring sneakers to school for P.E., or that she’d almost forgotten to take her Moon Pill – and a kind of white-hot blindness would overtake her, gushing like lava from her mouth, until their faces turned hard and red and she was sent upstairs to think about what she had done. She would pace up and down her bedroom floor, hating everything, until the force subsided. Sometimes it didn’t subside for days.

Hannah’s school life was different, too. To start with, the people had changed. It wasn’t just the little changes that had cropped up somewhere around the time they had turned eleven, either. The girls suddenly had hips to make up for their awkward new strides in height. The boys had shadows under their chins, and their voices came out in croaks.

And Hannah wasn’t an exception. Overnight, it seemed, she had turned long and thin and gangly, never quite sure what she was going to bump into or trip over next. She didn’t think she was much like the girls who had emerged from the summer looking sophisticated and grown-up. Her feet seemed too big for her body, and a colony of pimples had sprung up on her chin.

Her teachers appeared both irritated and unsurprised by the changes in their pupils. They started to assign them more homework and began to mutter under their breaths about how high school was going to be a rude shock unless they got their lives in order immediately. Hannah spent a lot of time staring out the window and passing notes with Ella. They didn’t have much to write about, other than upcoming school dances and who might take them (Jeremy Pryce still didn’t seem interested, to Hannah’s regret). Still, it was better than listening to Warren drone on about European topography.

Every so often their notes were confiscated, and Hannah and Ella were given detention. This earned Hannah deep sighs and tedious lectures from her parents.

“School,” said her father, “is important. Especially for you.”

“I know that’s what _you_ think,” snapped Hannah.

“It’s a fact. Do you want to live in our basement for the rest of your life?”

“I’m going to live here forever because me and Ella pass notes sometimes,” said Hannah flatly. “Yep, that sounds right to me.”

Her father’s face reddened. “You’re grounded for a week. Not because you passed notes, but because you suddenly seem incapable of showing respect. To me and to your teachers.”

Hannah didn’t know what to say to that, so she slammed the door in his face instead. That got her an extra three days of being grounded, but she couldn’t make herself feel sorry. He deserved it.

***

The full moon that December was a source of extreme irritation for Hannah. For the first time since the Cobhams had left Wisconsin, Aunt Marissa was coming to visit, and she was bringing her new boyfriend, Daniel. She would be arriving on the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve. The full moon was on the twenty-third.

Things got worse when Hannah found out that Chloe’s family would be having a caroling party that afternoon. Chloe’s family was quite well-to-do, and they were pulling out all the stops. Chloe had talked at length about the ice sculptures that were being delivered, the chocolate fountain they had rented, the Christmas trees they had decorated in each room of the house. Everyone that Chloe liked from Hannah’s class was invited. Ella, Aimee, Seb, Min, Ross – even Jeremy Pryce had been asked (and was going, according to the rumor mill.) Hannah was invited too, but it wasn’t as if that made any difference.

“No,” said her mother, looking unhappy.

“Why not?” demanded Hannah. “It’s at four. The moon doesn’t rise until after ten – I even _checked_ – and I’ll be gone hours before then.”

“For the same reason we don’t let you go to school on those days. You’re never up to it. Do you remember how bad your headache was last month?”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“You hardly got off the couch.”

“I’ll get off the couch for Chloe’s Christmas party. The chocolate fountain will cure me.”

“Fine,” said her mother. “If you don’t want to think about yourself, think about other people.”

 _“Other people_ are going to Chloe’s party.”

“Exactly,” said her mother. “We don’t know Chloe’s family very well. We don’t know who the guests are going to be. We don’t know how they feel about lycanthropy. We can’t say for sure that nothing’s going to happen –”

Hannah opened her mouth, appalled. “I’m not going to transform at Chloe’s house!”

“ _I_ know you’re not, and there are other people who know that, but it can make people nervous, sweetie. I won’t have people talking about you; I won’t have them thinking that you’re –”

“That I’m _what?”_ snarled Hannah. “They can think whatever they want. I don’t _care.”_

“I care,” said her mother, “and you are not going. Even if that means I have to lock you in.”

She didn’t – Hannah tested the door and checked – but she did spent the entire day at her side, allowing her no more than five minutes alone at a time. Four o’clock came and went. The old black-and-white films Aunt Marissa had sent blared from the TV. Hannah’s head pounded; a tingly kind of fury coursed through every vein. She put a couch pillow over her face so that her mother wouldn’t notice the way her eyes were starting to swim. She punched different places on the sofa, but it didn’t help.

“Think about Harry,” said her mother soothingly, putting a soft arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “He can’t go, either.”

“He doesn’t _want_ to go,” said Hannah, her face still planted in the pillow. “He doesn’t _like_ big parties. It’s not the same.”

She was almost relieved when the time came to go into the study and transform. She rejected all offers of DVDs and games with her brothers, since the only thing she really wanted to do was brood. She allowed her parents to check on her, forced the stiff, awkward wolf legs up the stairs, and headed toward her room.

She was almost there when the wolf’s keen ears picked up the sound of hushed, angry male voices.

“– not my fault if Dungeons and Dragons is more important to you than, like, actually having friends –” said one of her older brothers.

“– not my fault if smoking behind the gym is more important to you than not being a complete dickhead –” said the other.

“How many friends do you even have? Still just the two?”

“How many brain cells do you even have? Still just the two?”

Hannah changed direction almost immediately. For a few seconds, she stood in front of their door, ears pricked, wondering whether she should eavesdrop a little more first. What on earth had Andrew meant when he’d said Tom had been smoking? Smoking _what?_ He’d never mentioned anything about that. She’d have liked to hear what he was going to say.

But the urge to stop this in its tracks – whatever it was – was too strong for Hannah to wait more than a moment. She was lucky that the door was slightly ajar. She shoved her way in. They noticed her when she growled.

They gazed at her in an identical, squinty-eyed way.

“This isn’t a great time, Han,” said Andrew slowly. “We’re – Tom and I are trying to come to an agreement on something.”

“And you think _she’s_ going to interrupt that?” said Tom, laughing in a way that wasn’t laughing at all. “She can’t even _talk_ , and it’s not like we were actually agreeing on anything anyway. Come on, Hannah, get up on my bed. We’ll hang out for a while.”

It was a good thing Tom had the lower bunk. Hannah jumped up on it and settled herself on his comforter. She gave her brothers a steady, disapproving glare, to show that she’d heard what they’d said and would accept no more of it. They sighed, but they didn’t start arguing again. Hannah supposed it would be hard to do anything when a wolf was staring you in the face. Even if you knew it was really your sister.

“I’m sorry if we disturbed you,” said Andrew quietly.

Hannah did not take her eyes off his face. They had to _understand._

“Well, I’m not,” said Tom. “It needed to be said.”

“What – you had to insult me?” Andrew took his eyes off Hannah. “You had to prove just how much of an asshole you’ve become?”

 _“I’m_ the asshole?” Tom laughed again. “I’m not the one who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

Hannah spent a long moment trying to think of what to do. Maybe snapping directly at Tom and Andrew’s faces. Maybe jumping off the bed and stalking out of the room. Maybe just staring at them for the rest of the night.

She thought, and then something funny happened: The wolf’s left front leg went numb. Hannah shook it a little, but it made no difference. In fact, the numbness spread until it had taken over her right front leg, too.

“Hannah?” said Andrew. “Are you okay?”

Hannah turned, to give him a different kind of stare, a more reassuring one. But as her body turned, something in her head turned, too. And the numbness spread – and spread – and _spread_ – until her whole body felt light and unsteady and wrong.

And suddenly she didn’t know where she was anymore.

***

Hannah opened her eyes.

No – they weren’t her eyes. They were still the wolf’s eyes; it was still night; the moon was still up. Andrew’s robot clock shone neon yellow from its place on the desk. Eleven-thirty. So about half an hour had passed, then, since –

Hannah jolted upwards. The room looked different. Bits of Tom and Andrew’s blue-striped carpet had been torn out; she could see wooden floorboards from beneath it. A pile of high school textbooks lay splayed and scattered across the floor, their covers bent. The worksheets beside them had been shredded to ribbons. One of Tom’s pillows had been ripped across the middle, releasing an explosion of downy white feathers.

Tom and Andrew themselves were nowhere to be seen.

A terrible feeling crept inside Hannah, not unlike the numbness she had felt half an hour before.

She looked at the door. Someone had closed it. Everyone knew she was no match for doorknobs on transformation nights. Her parents had explained to her brothers that they were not to shut any of the doors in the house unless they wanted privacy in their own bedrooms.

And yet someone had closed the door.

Hannah approached it and listened as hard as she could. She could just make out the sound of her parents’ voices, which were talking at a strange, rapid speed. She knew she would have been able to understand everything they were saying if they were closer, so they must be downstairs. She could hear Tom and Andrew’s voices, too, filling in the spaces where her parents paused. They were all together, then. Talking.

Hannah felt sick.

She spent the rest of the night trying to put the room back together. There was only so much she could do in her current state, but if they saw what the wolf had done –

No. She wouldn’t let that happen. She managed to get the feathers into the wastebasket by picking them up with the wolf’s enormous jaws, which took an agonizingly long time. She stacked up the textbooks and shoved the ruined worksheets behind them. There was nothing she could do about the carpet, so she tried to place things strategically around the damage. Maybe by the time her parents noticed, they would just assume it was Tom’s fault.

When Hannah had cleaned up the best she could, she jumped up on Tom’s bed again and squirmed around until she was under the covers, her head placed squarely on his pillow. It was an uncomfortable way to sleep as a wolf, but for the rest of tonight, she was going to be as human as she could possibly manage.

***

They were staring at her. Tom and Andrew and her parents.

Hannah shifted in Tom’s bed. Having everyone lean over her like that made her feel as small as if she was still a wolf.

“Hey,” said Andrew softly.

“Hannah,” whispered her father. “Do you remember what happened?”

Hannah pulled the covers over her head, creating a dark, private tent. “Leave me alone,” she said. “My head hurts.”

“David is waiting for us to call back,” said her mother. Her voice reminded Hannah of terrible things. “He needs to know what you remember.”

“Do you remember eating my homework?” said Tom. “Because you _literally_ ate my homework. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but –”

“Go _away,”_ said Hannah. Her stomach was doing something funny, something painful, and the only way to make it stop was to make them all leave. The sooner the better.

“What do you remember, Han?” said her father. His voice was both hard and pleading, and it made her want to slap him. “Please.”

Hannah stayed under the covers. She kept her mouth closed. She shut her eyes so tightly that tiny pink sparks danced behind her pupils.

“We could go over what happened,” offered Andrew. “I’m sure you remember coming into our room and hanging out for a while, right?”

Everyone waited.

“I guess,” muttered Hannah finally.

“You guess you remember, or you do remember?” said her father.

Hannah glared from beneath the covers. “I remember.”

“And then, after a few minutes, you – you changed,” said Andrew.

“Changed,” said Hannah, feigning blankness.

“You, um – I don’t know if you remember. We had to get Dad. We had to shut you in, shove Mom’s wardrobe against the door –”

“Do you remember that?” whispered her mother.

Hannah listened to the sound of her own breathing for a few long seconds. Inside the tent, it was louder than any of her family’s voices.

“Hannah,” said her father.

“No.”

“No, you don’t remember, or no, you’re not going to answer my question?” He was clearly getting frustrated; she allowed herself to hate him more. “Because I don’t want to ground you again, but if you won’t answer me –”

Hannah swallowed. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“My legs felt weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Kind of – prickly?”

“Okay,” said her father. “And… you don’t remember anything after the prickly feeling?”

Hannah did not want to answer, but her mother’s hands were lifting her tent from her face, and the light burned her eyes, and she knew they would make her.

She shook her head.

“Okay… okay. Do you remember when you went back to normal? Because, uh – clearly you did.” He gestured at the wastebasket, and the flurry of feathers scattered around it. Hannah looked quickly away.

“It was only fifteen minutes later,” lied Hannah. “I saw Andrew’s clock.”

“Fifteen minutes,” murmured her mother, and Hannah’s stomach seared.

“You’re sure you took all your pills this month?” said her father. “Every day?”

“Max, I _told_ you – we keep a calendar for that – I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let her miss a dose –”

For the second time, Hannah thought she saw a dark, foreign shape hovering behind her mother. But as before, when she tried to look at it more carefully, it was gone.

Her father’s voice went even harder. “You never threw a pill down the toilet? Hid one under your plate?”

 _“No.”_ She tried to make this apparent in the way she glowered at him. He flinched, which pleased her.

“You’re sure.”

_“Yes.”_

“Okay,” said her father slowly. “Well, that’s probably enough for now. Go back to sleep. Try to relax. We’ll talk about this later. It’s Christmas, and God knows we have enough to do already.”

***

Daniel turned out to be burly, brown-haired, and constantly smiling. Hannah liked him almost as much as Aunt Marissa seemed to. When Christmas morning arrived, he and Aunt Marissa were the first adults awake. Gulliver and Moe ran ahead in their pajama feet, yelping with excitement. Hannah trailed behind, reminding herself that she was too old for such things now.

“Look inside your stocking,” said Daniel, riffling Hannah’s hair. “I know you probably don’t believe in Santa anymore, but _someone_ left some good stuff in there.”

Hannah looked. Aunt Marissa’s visit had resulted in the best Christmas stocking she had seen in years. There were foil-wrapped cookies the size of her face, lumps of coal spun from sugar, twenty dollars wrapped in a pair of fuzzy socks, a new set of noise-blocking headphones for her iPod. Even the bog-standard Christmas clementines were so juicy that one bite made liquid dribble down her chin.

“Merry Christmas,” said Aunt Marissa, giving her a warm, rib-crushing hug, the kind she always associated with being tiny and breathless in Wisconsin.

Hannah had no idea if Aunt Marissa knew what had happened on the full moon. After emerging from Tom’s bed on Christmas Eve, Hannah had watched her for a little while, trying to determine whether someone had told her. But Aunt Marissa seemed exactly like she always did, plus a little bit extra that Hannah supposed came from Daniel. If Aunt Marissa knew, then either she didn’t care, or she was doing a very good job of pretending she didn’t. Which only strengthened her place in Hannah’s mind as her favorite relative.

Breakfast was ready by the time her parents made their way downstairs. Hannah had forgotten the way Aunt Marissa’s waffles melted into buttery oblivion on the tip of her tongue. She ate five in quick succession, giving her parents a wide and careless grin every time they glanced over at her. She wanted them to know that she was ignoring the worry lines in their foreheads.

Presents were next. Her mother had given her the hair chalk she had wanted – Hannah had jubilant visions of arriving at school with different colored streaks in her hair every day of the week. She got a ukulele from Tom (“I’ll teach you,” he said), and a telescope from Andrew (“There’s a meteor shower this August. We’ll watch it together.”) With help from Aunt Marissa, Gulliver and Moe had even pitched in to get her a new box set of 1940s film noir.

Aunt Marissa gave Hannah her present in private. It was a cell phone. And not just any phone, either – it was a fancy one, with a metallic yellow case she could snap on and off. The kind of phone that Hannah knew Tom and Andrew coveted. She wasn’t even supposed to _have_ a phone until she started high school.

Hannah beamed.

“I figure it’s lonely, sometimes, being the only girl,” said Aunt Marissa. “I want you to know you can call me whenever you feel like it. About anything, okay? School, friends, your smelly brothers, the way your dad pretends he doesn’t snore when he really sounds like a foghorn – anything at all.”

Hannah called her right then and there. Aunt Marissa had her own phone in her pocket, and it was identical to Hannah’s right down to the phone case, except that it was blue.

She spent the rest of the day gloatingly showing her phone off, dancing to Christmas music with Moe, beating Andrew and Daniel at video games, being bad at the ukulele with Tom. She pretended it would last.

Aunt Marissa and Daniel left for Wisconsin in the evening. Hannah slept with her new phone on her night table, one hand curled around it.

***

Rose and David called the next morning. Hannah’s mother ordered her to take a walk so she couldn’t eavesdrop and then shut herself in her room. Hannah paced the loop that led from their house to Moe’s favorite playground, kicking at stones and fiddling with her hair.

By the time she was allowed back home, it was after noon. Her brothers must have been sent away – there was no sign of any of them. Her parents sat her down at the dining room table, looking grim.

“What?” said Hannah, trying to ignore the trepidation she felt. “What did they say? It was just a fluke, right?”

“Maybe,” said her mother, and this time there was no hiding it: There was a shadow wafting around her head, identical to the ones Hannah had seen at Pendoggett Farm. “But they think it’s more likely that there’s something wrong with the way you’re reacting to the Moon Pill.”

Hannah looked away from her mother and the eidolon. If she didn’t see it, she didn’t have to think about it.

“There’s a name for what happened,” said her father. “They’re called lycanthropic episodes. Nobody really knows what triggers them – I want to make sure you know that this isn’t your fault. I’m sorry if I insinuated that. The important thing is that we nip this in the bud.”

Hannah smiled until her eyes bulged. Anything to make him stop _looking_ at her like that.

“Okay, so…?”

“There’s – well. There are laws in place – things that people need to do, in order to be allowed to transform at home again. Rose and David can explain it to you.”

“No,” said Hannah. “Tell me now.”

Her father’s eyebrows moved so close together that all Hannah could see of them was a woolly, wrinkled line.

“The law… it doesn’t really make sense; not from a medical perspective. The only way to fix this is for Rose and David to change your dose and then check you for the next few months, to make sure it’s working. But when the Moon Pill was being legislated –”

Hannah could still see the eidolon from the corner of her eye. She turned her head even further.

“What?”

“A lot of people out there don’t really understand lycanthropy.” Her father rubbed at his eyes, as if that might magically make everything less miserable. “When the Moon Pill was being legislated, a lot of people said they wouldn’t vote for it until the proposed law was amended. They worried that Type Threes who have these episodes could be – well, they were worried that people wouldn’t be safe. That the best solution would be to mandate a hospital stay.” He cleared his throat hastily. “Even though – as we all know – an untransformed Type Three is a danger to nobody. But people can be cowardly.”

“So, that means what, exactly?”

Hannah had a pretty good idea of what it meant, but she wanted to make him say it.

“I don’t want to – look. It’s not as bad as it sounds. A month.”

She did not look at him. “A month.”

“Yes. One month in the hospital. We all agreed that you don’t have to go until tomorrow. Your teachers will keep you caught up – they’ll send you your homework. You’ll be able to Skype in for certain classes. Four weeks, and then it’s over.” He tried to catch her eye. “You’ll be back before you know it.”

Hannah thought for a moment. Under the table, the fingernails on her left hand dug into the palm of her right. The pain helped her breathe.

“Well,” she said, as cheerfully as she could. “I guess I’d better go pack.”

Her parents stared after her as she pushed in her chair and trotted up to her room. She gave them a little wave and hummed as she mounted the stairs. Her mother’s eidolon drifted back and forth, as if to give her a wave in return.

She didn’t think she had ever been so angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm assuming you'd all caught on to what was happening with Hannah's mother by now, but hey, now it's being spelled out. Another thing for Hannah not to think about too hard.


	10. The Room Across the Hall

A month. She was going to miss school. She was going to miss the winter formal. She was going to miss sledding on Trevarthen Hill, hot chocolate at Bisclavret’s Coffee Shop, Gulliver’s much-anticipated school play where he was a tin soldier and got to march all over the stage. All because her parents couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

“Try to see it as a good thing,” her mother kept saying, in a soft voice that made Hannah want to throttle her. “A vacation of sorts. They’ll take a look at what went wrong and fix it, so this will never happen again.”

“It was just a _fluke_ ,” said Hannah, for the umpteenth time.

Nobody listened. Rose and David prepared a room for her. Her parents met with her teachers at Trevarthen and came back with an enormous stack of papers. Hannah told Ella, Aimee, and Chloe that she needed to have her appendix taken out. Harry knew the truth, through his mother, but they didn’t talk about it.

Then Hannah was being ushered through the doors of the hospital by her parents, kissed goodbye by her brothers, and abandoned in a small room a few doors away from Rose’s office.

“I like to think of it as more of a bedroom than a hospital room,” said Rose, in an obvious attempt to cheer Hannah up. “You see the throw carpet? My mum sent it over from England. And that mural on the wall opposite your bed? Harry actually helped paint that when he was little – I think he did the elephant.”

This did not make Hannah feel better.

She knew, from talks with David over the next few days, that her father had been right when he said there wasn’t a practical purpose for staying in the hospital. Rose and David could do a few things – test her blood, examine her iron levels, double-check that her dosage had been at the recommended level when the episode had happened. But the fact was that the only way to treat what had happened to Hannah was to change her dosage and hope for the best. The law that had brought her to the hospital was an attempt to appease a paranoid public, not a way to make things better for Hannah.

“So what am I supposed to _do?_ ” she said. “Sit around eating bon-bons for the next four weeks? Does this place even _have_ bon-bons?”

“Depends on your definition of bon-bons,” said David thoughtfully. “They’re a brand name in France – in my opinion they’re nasty, like Mentos gone wrong – but I think the word can also just be a fancy way of talking about chocolate. Which is, incidentally, a highly sneak-in-able item.”

“There’s a playroom downstairs, in the main part of the hospital,” said Rose. “It tends to be frequented by younger children, but you might find something you’d like to do there. And you’d have new people to talk to.”

Hannah ignored both of them. Chocolates would improve the situation for all of thirty seconds unless David had an infinite supply of them. And she certainly did not want to talk to new people. Anyone she met here would be sick, broken, tired; and she did not want anything to do with them.

“I have a ton of homework,” she said. “I better just work on that.”

***

Hannah spent the first three days lying in bed and playing Fruit Ninja on her new phone. When her head started to hurt from staring at a tiny screen for so long, she took the elevator to the hospital gift shop and pretended she was browsing for a sick relative, hiding the hospital bracelet on her wrist under a sweatshirt she had stolen from Andrew.

On the fourth day, as she made her way down the hall, something was different. The door to the room across from hers – a room that had always been closed off before – was suddenly ajar. A large suitcase had been parked next to it.

Hannah stared. From her years of conversations with James and Tristan and Nicolas, she knew that a hospital stay in the weeks before the full moon was incredibly rare. Sometimes, she supposed, it happened for the same reason that she was there; other times, people came in for a dosage change voluntarily. But usually there was only one reason.

She was just about to peer into the room when Rose came running down the hallway.

Rose glanced at Hannah and then at the door; she frowned. “You didn’t go in there, did you, Hannah?”

“No,” said Hannah. “But why –”

“Good,” said Rose, sounding relieved. “Because I was hoping to catch you in time to let you know that you’re _not_ to go in there. I’m afraid I’ve got to insist on that. Now, if you’d like to stop by my office, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. I’d think you’d be grateful for something to do…”

And she hurried off down the hallway. Hannah followed, utterly bewildered.

Inside Rose’s office, atop the bright peony pink of her sofa and holding a mug of coffee, was a woman who looked faintly familiar to Hannah. She was tall and dark skinned and somehow regal looking – Hannah couldn’t decide if it was her long neck or the elegant way her shoulders arched or the half-amused glint in her eyes. She guessed she was about Rose’s age.

She gave Hannah a wide, unencumbered smile, of a kind she had never seen in a hospital before. Hannah couldn’t help but smile back.

“You haven’t met before, have you?” said Rose.

“We might have given each other a little nod of solidarity here and there,” said the woman. She flicked one of her box braids across her shoulder and gave Hannah a wry grin. “From a distance, of course. But no, I don’t think we’ve ever spoken.”

“Well, meet the inimitable Hannah Cobham,” said Rose. “Hannah, this is Isobel – my best friend. Mrs. Robeson to you, I suppose. We met at university.”

“I wasn’t allowed to go to college in the States, so I went abroad, over in London,” Mrs. Robeson explained. “Rose studied medicine; I studied journalism. The laws were different back then, of course. Much worse for us werewolves. Never could’ve predicted we’d end up living in the same city afterward – but I guess it makes sense, doesn’t it? Easier to live here. Most of the time.”

Hannah squinted at her. Mrs. Robeson didn’t _look_ like a werewolf. Not that werewolves looked any different from anybody else, but – Hannah didn’t think she’d have been able to guess. Not in a million years.

Mrs. Robeson smirked. “Type Three, been a werewolf since I was sixteen, and I leave the country every few months, so it’s been a _damn_ long journey. You’ve got nothing on me.”

Hannah gave her a long, skeptical look. Mrs. Robeson gave her one back. To Hannah’s surprise, they both cracked up.

“Mrs. Robeson just got back from Tibet,” said Rose. “She’s a reporter – for _The Washington Post_ , you know – foreign correspondent – and they send her all over the world. But apparently they want her to do some work at home for a while?” She raised her eyebrows at Mrs. Robeson, and Hannah understood that Rose didn’t know the full details yet.

“That’s why I’m here,” said Mrs. Robeson, more to Hannah than to Rose. “Unfortunately for me, going pretty much anywhere – and especially coming back _here_ , to the land of the devil’s own bureaucracy – means an unholy amount of paperwork to fill out. So Rose and I decided to scribble it out over coffee. Sign here to confirm I’m not planning to rip anyone’s throat out, yada yada. Very boring.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” said Rose.

“You didn’t _ask_ a question,” said Mrs. Robeson. “And you know I’d have told you earlier if I’d been at liberty to talk about it. But here it is: turns out they want me to do something on Rumon.”

Mrs. Robeson seemed to have predicted the effect that this simple sentence would have, because she squeezed Rose’s hand after saying it. Rose had paled visibly.

“Sorry – hang on –” Her voice grew tight. “Did you say _Rumon_?”

“Yes, yes, but don’t worry. They just want me to quell the public’s fears a little. Not that I think it’ll help much, but the money’s good, and since I’m the only one who can do it – well, I couldn’t see why not. Besides, it’ll be interesting. I haven’t been to Rumon for ages.”

“Yes,” said Rose quietly. “It definitely will be interesting. Just – be careful, all right?”

“Careful?” said Mrs. Robeson. “Rose Tarry, do you know me at _all?”_

“I’m only saying. Things have happened.”

“Things happen everywhere.”

“I know,” said Rose. “I know.”

Hannah was about to ask what on earth they were talking about when a hesitant knock rattled its way through the door. Everyone looked up.

The man who stood in the doorframe was tall and balding, with a scrubby little goatee and shoulders that slumped. Mostly what Hannah noticed about him was how sad his eyes were. Rose’s expression sharpened at once.

“Erm… insurance finally got back to me,” the man said. “If you’re able to look over some more papers. But if this is a bad time –”

“No, no,” said Rose. “Isobel and I were just having a chat. She’s an old friend. Here to sort out some papers of her own.”

“Yes, we’ve met – talked a little this morning in the cafeteria,” said the man. “I’d like to speak to you both, actually… different perspectives…”

“And Hannah here had just stopped by to visit – but she can go back to her room, no problem. Hannah, if you would?”

As that afternoon had been more interesting than the last three days put together, Hannah would have preferred to stay, but she was well acquainted with the look Rose was giving her, and she knew there was no point in resisting. The man sat in Hannah’s former place on the sofa and watched her as she headed for the door. Rose mouthed _sorry_ and _we’ll talk later._

The second Hannah left the room, she found the nearest corner of unobtrusive hallway and sat down to listen. If Rose hadn’t realized she was going to eavesdrop, she was an idiot. After all, Hannah couldn’t even _help_ eavesdropping as long as she stayed in the hallway. They weren’t bothering to keep their voices down, and her ears were too good.

“…Never seen him like this before,” the man was saying. “Not even when his mom left – of course, he was very young; I suppose he didn’t understand for a long time; but if there was something wrong, he always _listened_ to me, even if he didn’t listen to anyone else. Now? It’s like nothing gets through to him. Nothing.”

“It’s only been a few days,” said Rose gently. “He’s just had his entire life turned upside down.”

“You don’t understand. He’s a kid who’s always taken things hard – he’s always kept things to himself – I _know_ how he looks when he’s upset. This is new. This isn’t my son. I don’t know –” His breath caught. “I don’t know that he can handle this.”

Rose was quiet, but Mrs. Robeson made a funny clucking noise with her tongue. “Eventually,” she said, “he’s going to realize that he doesn’t have a choice. It’s a conclusion we all come to in our own time. Think about it – the world decides what we’re going to be before we even have the breath to complain. You can either decide you’re not going to complain anymore, or you agree to spend your whole life complaining.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about! Topher has always – Topher blames himself. Topher _wallows_ ,” said the man. “This silence – this acting like his whole life is over – I could see him doing it for the rest of his life.” He swallowed so hard that Hannah could hear it from the hall. “Easily.”

“Well, if I were Topher, I would _not_ want to know you were thinking that,” said Mrs. Robeson. “I’d want my dad to have some faith in me.”

He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean –”

“She knows,” said Rose tersely, and Hannah could just _see_ her giving Mrs. Robeson the same look she had just given Hannah. “You want the best for your son. And that’s exactly what we’re going to give him. Now – shall we have a look at those papers, Mr. Sewell?”

Hannah listened a while longer to see whether they might reveal anything else, or if Mrs. Robeson might return to whatever she had been talking about before the man – Mr. Sewell – had come in. Unfortunately, the conversation turned decidedly to insurance, and there was no point in listening anymore. Hannah returned to her room and to Fruit Ninja, turning over the things she had heard in her mind.

If she put the obvious together, then this Topher was the person occupying the room across the hall. It was funny: Mr. Sewell’s description of Topher, as brief as it had been, made him sound exactly like the kind of person Hannah would never want to talk to – the worst of the hospital people she was trying to avoid. But there was another part of her that wanted to see for herself if he was really as bad as Mr. Sewell had said. To see if she could get him to say something.

***

Harry came to visit a few days later. Hannah wasted no time in filling him in on everything that had happened. As usual, he seemed to know much more than she did.

“Oh yeah, I’ve known Mrs. Robeson for years,” he said. “She showed me some pictures she took in New Zealand once – said that someday when she had enough money she’d take me, since she knows I like photography. She’s great. A little scary, though, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Hannah agreed. She remembered the way Mrs. Robeson had cut Mr. Sewell off. “But… a good kind of scary, I think. How’s school going? How’s Seb?”

Harry’s face darkened a little. “Um – he’s – fine, I guess. I just – I don’t know, Hannah. Maybe it’s not worth it.”

“What’s not worth what?”

“Maybe – maybe I should wait. You know. To tell people – Seb, I mean – that I like him. I mean, I know he likes boys. He doesn’t have a problem talking about it. But I just feel like there’s… no taking it back, you know?”

“No,” said Hannah. “I don’t. You should just tell him. Because it’s true.”

Harry winced and changed the subject. Hannah let him, because of the expression on his face.

“Anyway, that Topher guy you were talking about,” he said. “He was in the _Post_ a few days ago. He’s our age; did you know that? Apparently he was at one of those concerts at the Verizon Center. You know, where you get a cheaper price for a ticket because it’s a full moon, and people are scared to go out.”

“What?!” said Hannah. “That’s – that’s the werewolf equivalent of sexism! Unless they let us buy tickets and come as wolves. We could howl along with the music…”

Harry pretended he wasn’t smiling. “Well, he didn’t even make into the building. He was there with his dad, and they were getting in line, just walking down the street – a pretty crowded street, actually – and this wolf appeared out of nowhere. They didn’t catch it, either. That’s why it’s such a big story; it totally vanished. The guy’s still out there somewhere.”

“Or girl,” said Hannah. “It could be a girl.”

“Or girl,” he conceded. “Nobody knows who it was. It was probably an accident, of course – the wolf probably couldn’t control itself. But still…”

Hannah did not want to think about that. He knew where she stood on that.

“Do you know anything about that Rumon place Mrs. Robeson was talking about?” she said, steering the conversation back to safer waters. “Rose sounded scared.”

“Rumon? No.” Harry looked puzzled. “I’ve never even heard of it. I guess it’s a town or something.”

“Must be a pretty interesting town if _The Washington Post_ wants Mrs. Robeson to do an article on it,” said Hannah. “And neither of them would tell me anything. Even when I asked Rose the next day.”

“Mrs. Robeson probably has to keep the details secret,” said Harry. “The _Post_ wouldn’t want their big story to leak out before they even got a chance to write it.”

“I guess,” said Hannah. “It seems weird, though. I mean, Mrs. Robeson’s been all over the world. She’s been to places that are way more dangerous than Rumon, whatever it is. She told me she was in Iraq only a year after 9/11.”

“Well then, there’s nothing to worry about,” said Harry sensibly. “We’ll find out eventually. You always do, with Mrs. Robeson.”

If Hannah had thought there was a chance she _wouldn’t_ go against Rose’s orders and try to talk to Topher, the next few days proved her wrong. With Mrs. Robeson gone from the hospital and her family adjusted to their new routine, Hannah had even less to do than before. When she finally beat the last level of Fruit Ninja, she knew that Operation Topher was going to be something she could not help.

The question was how to do it. She had to find a time when both Rose and David were off doing other things, with no chance that they might suddenly return. For three days, Hannah popped in and out of Rose’s office, trying to learn her daily movements. Unfortunately, Rose’s schedule seemed to be in a constant state of change; Hannah kept running into her in the hallway. She had just about given up hope when she suddenly got her chance.

“Hannah, I’ve had a phone call,” said Rose, coming into her room at a much earlier hour than Hannah would have liked. “Mr. Sewell’s had a problem with his papers, and we’ve got to go and speak to his lawyer. David and I will be downstairs at the Starbucks if you need us. We’ll probably be finished around lunchtime.”

“Let me _sleep_ ,” said Hannah, throwing one of her pillows at Rose. “It’s not even ten yet.”

But when Rose left the room, Hannah found she was wide awake. It was now or never; she was sure of it. She pulled on a bright red band T-shirt that Tom had handed down to her, turned to go, and then ran back for a stick of purple hair chalk. There was something about having purple in her hair that made her feel braver, more determined. She made two little purple braids and then headed into the hall.

She looked at Topher’s door for a second, wiped her fingertips on her jeans, and went in.

The room was a mess. Piles of clothes littered the floor, hung from doorknobs, and dangled off the dresser. A stack of unopened boxes – sympathy gifts, probably – sat untouched in one corner. In the other, Hannah saw a heap of sundry items: a CD player, a box set of science fiction novels, some photographs in frames, a pillow in the shape of a pineapple. It looked like someone had brought the entire contents of their bedroom into the hospital before deciding they didn’t want a single piece of it. It was so overwhelming that Hannah stared for a full minute before she remembered Topher.

He was in bed, and only his face was visible. Hannah looked closer; she noticed choppily cut dark hair, a square chin, and the thickest set of eyebrows she had ever seen. He wasn’t asleep. His eyes were open, flitting around the room. They settled on Hannah. They looked away.

“Um,” she said. She realized she hadn’t prepared anything to say. She thought quickly. “I’m Hannah. You’re… Topher, right?”

He kept looking away from her.

Well. She’d have been a fool if she’d thought it was going to be that easy. “I’m staying across the hall from you,” she said. “So I thought I’d come say hi. Because I’m bored out of my mind.”

No, that sounded awful. She tried again.

“I saw your dad for a few days ago. He seemed kind of gloomy, but I liked his goatee. Isn’t it unfair that men can grow beards and women can’t? I saw this TV special once about a woman with a beard, but it’s not like that’s exactly normal. Plus it didn’t match her hair.”

Now she just sounded like she belonged in an asylum. Hannah wasn’t used to this. She couldn’t remember the last time she had talked to someone who hadn’t talked back.

“Not that it _matters_ ,” she said, with just a touch of desperation. “Women can have beards if they want to. I don’t want to sound like I’m prejudiced or anything. I’d probably grow a beard if nature would let me.”

His apathy was unmistakable this time: He rolled over onto his side and glared at the wall. He didn’t want to speak to her – and worse, he almost definitely thought she was an imbecile.

Now she was angry.

She marched further into the room until she was right up next to the bed, scowling down into Topher’s face amid his rumpled hospital sheets. He met her eyes coldly for half a second, then curled away from her and pulled his covers over his head, so that she couldn’t even watch him ignoring her.

“Look,” snapped Hannah. “I’m not leaving.”

She tried to project confidence into her voice, like she was supposed to be here. Like Rose or Mr. Sewell had invited her to come; like they had begged her to find a way to make Topher her friend.

“I’m not going to leave until you talk to me. I don’t care what we talk _about_ , because at this point I’ll talk about literally anything in the world. But we have to talk about _something._ And you have to sit up and look at me and stop pretending that you hate me, because you don’t even _know_ me. You’re not even sick anymore. I can tell. It doesn’t _last_ that long.”

She looked hard at the bump under the covers that was Topher’s head. It gave a slight twitch, but didn’t resurface.

“I’m _serious_ ,” she said. “I mean it.”

She watched again. The covers gave a muffled groan.

“I’m a _nice person_. I really am. _And_ I’m awesome at talking David into buying me Starbucks, and he even said he’d get me bon-bons, whatever bon-bons are. If that’s something that interests you.”

Nothing this time; not even a twitch. Hannah imagined Topher deciding that if he pretended to be dead for long enough, she’d eventually go away.

“You could get out of bed if you wanted,” she muttered. “I guess you just don’t want to.”

There was a pause, and then –

“Yeah. I guess not.”

The reply was so unexpected that it took Hannah several seconds to register that he had spoken. Topher’s voice was deeper than most people’s their age, with the effect that it came out louder. It was also thoroughly and utterly imbued with sarcasm, in a way Hannah was not sure even Tom could match.

Hannah blinked. “You talked.”

“Only a little bit,” murmured Topher. “And I have no intention of doing it again.”

“But you just _did_ do it again.”

“Against my better judgment.”

“But you did.”

He finally emerged from his covers, mostly so he could glower at her. The thick line of his eyebrows made this look more intimidating than Hannah would have liked.

“Look,” he said. “Exactly eight days ago – nine, as of tonight – I was bitten by a deranged werewolf. I’m entitled to not talking if I don’t want to talk. Whether that’s now or for the rest of my life. Go back to your happy little world full of – I dunno, facial hair – and leave me alone.”

“So you _were_ listening,” said Hannah. “I thought so.”

“I didn’t have a choice. You weren’t shutting up. And you still aren’t, and I mean what I’m saying. Please go away. Please.”

“But that would be counterproductive,” said Hannah, smiling. “The conversation only just started.”

“Do I look like I care?”

Hannah looked. He did not.

“I just spent a week throwing up. My entire body feels like a piece of shit. My dad’s downstairs fighting with my mom’s lawyer because she doesn’t want to pay for any of my hospital bills, because she hates supernatural stuff, but she mostly just doesn’t like me. Also, I think I mentioned that I got bitten by a werewolf. Which means that I am now a werewolf. Which means that will be the status quo for the rest of my life, so you’ll excuse me if I ask you yet again to go _away_.”

The angry feeling inside Hannah was getting worse, not better.

“It isn’t that bad,” she said, trying as hard as she could to sound reasonable. “Being a werewolf. It’s not like your life is _over_ or anything.”

Topher was looking away from her again. “I don’t see how you would know that.”

“I don’t see how I _wouldn’t_ know that.” She heard her voice harden. “Considering I got bitten too. When I was eight. So I’ve been one a lot longer than you. And I’m _fine_. One-hundred-and-ten percent fine, so there.”

 _That_ made him look at her. If she was uncomfortable when he was avoiding her gaze, it was nothing to how she felt with his eyes boring into her own. They were gray and very serious-looking. She wasn’t sure she liked them.

“You have purple in your hair,” said Topher finally.

“I like having purple in my hair.”

“Is that a werewolf thing? Purple?”

“No. It’s a Hannah thing.”

He seemed to think about this for a moment. “Why are you in the hospital?”

“Just changing my dose.” Hannah realized that her arms had crossed themselves without her noticing. “No big deal. Just a touch-up kind of situation.”

“Right.” Topher closed his eyes. “Well, Hannah the Purple Werewolf, it wasn’t exactly nice to meet you, but I don’t know what else you’re supposed to say in these situations, so I guess I’ll lie and say it was. Fortunately for me, I still feel like shit, which means I’m going to kick you out now. Which I can do, because you aren’t even allowed to be here.”

“Fine,” said Hannah. “But I’m coming back later.”

“Fine,” said Topher. “But if you tell Rose or David or my dad or anyone that I even said a word to you, I’ll kill you myself. I don’t want to talk. To any of them. And they need to understand that.”

Hannah shut the door behind her and left. She wondered why she didn’t feel more triumphant as she walked the few steps from his room to hers. After all, she had won. She had gotten him to speak.

Still, there was a faint sense of unease that lingered with Hannah for the rest of the day. He wasn’t what she had expected. She didn’t know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In entirely unsurprising news, Hannah isn't really one for graceful small talk.
> 
> I love Mrs. Robeson and I love Topher, so this chapter makes me happy.


	11. Topher and Tom

After that, Hannah visited Topher as often as she could. As depressing as he had been, his company was still preferable to no company at all, and it made an interesting project to waltz into his room and see if she could shift any of his misery. Mostly she couldn’t. Although she popped in and out over the course of the next fortnight, he hardly said a word, no matter how much she tried to coax conversation out of him.

Hannah attributed this to the fact that she didn’t dare stop by for more than a few minutes at a time, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe he was getting worse.

Her next visit was different. To start with, she had more time: Rose was in her office, talking on the phone, growing more and more irritated by the demands of someone called “Mr. Hensley” and talking so loudly that Hannah was certain she’d know when the conversation was over. David had gone to the cafeteria for lunch.

As always, Topher was in bed. However, unlike the last few times Hannah had seen him, he didn’t look up when she entered the room. He was staring at the wall. There were dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey there,” said Hannah, as if nothing was amiss. “What’s up? Is your morning going okay?”

With extreme and obvious reluctance, Topher heaved his body into a sitting position.

“Okay,” he said, “is so much of an overstatement that I wonder if you’ve gone insane.”

Hannah lifted an eyebrow. “I was pretty sure you already thought I was insane. But if you didn’t, then that’s nice of you. Thanks.” She paused. “I guess something’s wrong?”

“I lost my colors,” said Topher, and turned away again.

Hannah took a small step backwards. He had actually given her something to _work_ with. She was almost afraid to touch it, in case she messed up. What was she supposed to say? Obviously, this was her chance to help him, to change him, to convince him that he didn’t have to be a sad lump in bed all the time – but how?

Her mind was moving too slowly. She snatched at the first instinct that came to her.

“You lost your colors? Well!” She forced a laugh. It came out slightly wrong, although not in any way that she could pinpoint. “I mean,” she backtracked, “If that’s why you’re – _that’s_ not something to be upset about. You know? I mean, it’s just something that happens. You’re doing your own thing, minding your own business, and then suddenly, _poof_ , they’re gone! And… okay, it kind of sucks, because it makes it harder to tell if your socks match in the morning. But matching socks are boring, aren’t they? Plus, they’ll be back soon enough –”

“I don’t care,” interrupted Topher, “if they’ll be back or not. The point, Hannah, is that they disappeared in the first place. And they will disappear again.”

“Yeah, but only for a couple days. It’s not really a big deal.”

“Nothing is ever a big deal to you.” Topher’s voice grew darker, somehow. “I’ve figured out that much.”

Hannah considered him, from his red-rimmed eyes to the way his hair was sticking up in front from not brushing it. She didn’t think she could stand to feel sorry for him anymore. She’d had no idea that someone so clueless could be so smug.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “Lots of things are big deals. It’s just that this _isn’t._ People dying is a big deal. People telling lies is a big deal. People hiding important stuff from their families is a big deal. Your colors are going to come _back_. You can’t let yourself get upset about it every single time.”

Topher sat up straighter, as if being unnecessarily nasty had given him new strength. “I can if I want to. Why do you get to tell me what I can and can’t be upset about? Who made you the dictator of all things lycanthropy? You can’t just – just decide not to feel something because you don’t want to. You’ve been one of them for what now – five years?”

Hannah sucked in a breath. “One of _them?”_

“Look,” snapped Topher. “I know you think you’re some kind of expert. But you _can’t_ be an expert at this kind of stuff. It’s too dark. It’s not natural. It’s not – I mean, think about it. Really, honestly think about it. A bite, a poison, so powerful that it changes you into something else, something different, for the rest of your life? It’s not _right_. And five whole years… if you were only eight… you must not even remember being normal, do you? You don’t know what it’s like. We aren’t the same.”

For one terrible, breathless second, it was just the two of them looking at each other. Though Hannah could feel venom spilling unchecked from her eyes, Topher’s gaze was infuriatingly still. Hannah was the first to blink, which only made her angrier. It felt like defeat.

She didn’t say anything. Topher didn’t, either.

She stormed out without another word.

***

Hannah might have taken the rest of the day off to rage, but Tom and Andrew were due to visit that afternoon for the first time in almost a week. She composed herself as best she could and did an antsy little dance across her room while waiting for them to arrive – and not just because she was upset. Though she had made a few feeble efforts to contain it, her mind kept replaying her conversation with Harry, and she finally had to admit to herself that she wanted to know the answer to the question he had raised in her mind. If there was anyone she could ask without causing a fuss, surely it was her older brothers.

Unfortunately, her hopes evaporated the moment David escorted Tom and Andrew into her room. Despite the fact that they were fraternal twins, they were wearing identical glowers. Hannah didn’t even need to ask to know that they’d had another fight.

“I’m not going to try to be cheerful, because I already tried that today, and it didn’t work,” she said. “I don’t want you here if you’re not speaking to each other. If you’re going to be like that, just go home.”

“We aren’t not speaking to each other,” said Tom dully. “We’ll talk if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t see why I should say anything to him,” said Andrew. “I’m not the one who started this.”

“You’re acting like a couple of four-year-olds,” snapped Hannah. “Do I have to put you in separate corners and make you think about what you’ve done?”

Tom and Andrew exchanged glances of disgust.

“Fine,” said Tom, his voice still toneless. “You know my friend Jasper? He had a party and there were some drinks and stuff and I wasn’t supposed to go and maybe I got a little drunk and maybe I said some shit I shouldn’t have said. A _little_ drunk, okay? It’s not like it’s something I do every day.”

“You threw up all over the couch,” said Andrew coldly. “I think that’s more than a little drunk – don’t you, Hannah?”

“Dad found me, so basically I’m grounded forever,” said Tom, ignoring Andrew. “Even though most people at school drink _way_ more than I do – look, everybody does stuff like this at this age. Wait until you’re a sophomore, Han. Just you wait and see.”

“Some of us don’t,” said Andrew, eyes flashing. “Some of us don’t even get invited to Jasper Kennicott’s parties.”

“You threw up on the _couch?_ ” said Hannah, impressed despite herself. “But I _like_ that couch. You couldn’t have done it in the toilet?”

“It’s fine, it got cleaned up. We Febrezed it.”

“It still smells like death,” said Andrew.

“Only if you shove your nose into it.”

“Only if you can breathe, you mean.”

“Only if you’ve got some kind of weird mutant nose.”

Andrew smirked. “Hannah will be able to smell it.”

There was an awkward silence. Hannah used the time to tap out a rather obscene response to both of them in Morse code. Since neither of her brothers had ever learned it, they didn’t notice.

“Who bit me?” she said abruptly. “Do either of you know?”

They squinted at her.

“I mean, did Mom and Dad ever tell you?” she said. “I know they know. Harry knows who bit _him._ ”

“I never asked,” said Tom, and his voice was suddenly quiet. “Do you want me to?”

“Does it even matter?” said Andrew. “You got bitten either way. And whoever it is, they’re in jail. I remember Mom telling us that. So we know they got what they deserved.”

“Yeah,” said Hannah hurriedly. “I know. I was just wondering. Don’t ask them. It’s not a big deal.”

Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted them to leave. She pretended to be tired – the full moon was only a couple of days away, after all, and she made a big show of having an imaginary headache until Andrew called their father to pick them up. He and Tom sat on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other, and Hannah pretended to be absorbed in texting Harry until they were gone. Having a cell phone, she was realizing, was useful in more ways than one.

***

Hannah spent the next few days more or less alone. The only person she saw very much of was David, who had decided that she was too old for checkers and insisted on teaching her chess. Hannah didn’t think it was much of an improvement – the rigid roles of the pieces irritated her, as she didn’t see why a bishop couldn’t move straight across the board like a rook if it wanted to. But she liked talking to David, so most of the time she humored him.

On the day of the full moon, they had just finished a match – Hannah having lost spectacularly – when David was summoned back to his office for a conference call.

“Sorry,” he said, looking pained. “I’d say I’d be back in a sec, except I know this guy – Mr. Hensley – and he _never_ stops talking. Oh dear; please forget I said that about a patient. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“No worries,” said Hannah, rolling her eyes. Her parents had dropped off the Humphrey Bogart box set that Aunt Marissa had sent her a few months before, and she was looking forward to rewatching _To Have and Have Not_. She tried to look as though she didn’t prefer this to playing chess.

The next few minutes were dedicated to wrestling with the finicky hospital DVD player, which always ran perfectly for Rose and put up a vicious fight for anyone else. Moving slowly to avoid agitating her throbbing head, Hannah unplugged it, replugged it, shook it, turned it upside-down, and finally slammed her fist down on top of it.

“You _stupid – goddamn –_ piece _of trash –”_

She lifted it high in the air, raised a fist, and then almost dropped it when someone opened the door.

“David?”

But it wasn’t David. It was Topher, standing with his arms wrapped around his chest. His jaw was set, his eyes on the ground. He looked worse than he had the last time she had seen him. The sight gave her a heavy, uncomfortable feeling in her chest.

“Oh,” she said coolly. “Hi.”

“Hey,” said Topher. “I – look. I’m sorry about what I said – you know, before. Do you mind if I come in?”

She was so surprised to see him out of bed that she nodded before she had thought it through.

He walked over to where the DVD player was leering up at her and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall for support. She watched as his fingers knitted themselves together and pulled apart again.

“Are you still mad at me?”

Hannah twisted her mouth to the side. “I dunno,” she said. “Probably.”

“Yeah,” said Topher. “I – I get that, I was scared, I – scared shitless, and nobody likes to admit that. And you kept coming in and acting like it didn’t _matter,_ and I didn’t want…”

“You didn’t want what?”

“I don’t know,” said Topher quietly. “I felt bad.”

“So… that’s your apology?”

Topher stared at her. Hannah allowed herself to smile.

“It was a decent one. I guess I’ll accept it. But that’s _mostly_ because you finally came out of your room.”

“I figured I had to anyway,” said Topher, looking at the floor. “Tonight. There’s that – basement place, right? Are you going to be there?”

Hannah squirmed and then immediately tried to pretend that she hadn’t.

“No,” she said. “I get to stay up here.”

Rose and David had given her this bit of good news the day before, explaining that her new dosage was high enough that there was no reason why it shouldn’t work, and that keeping her upstairs would make it easier for them to check on her. Hannah had tried to hide her relief, but she didn’t think she’d done an especially good job of it.

“Oh. Okay.” Topher rubbed at his temples. “It – it hurts, doesn’t it? I mean, I know it does. Everyone knows.”

“You get used to it,” said Hannah, as forcefully as possible. “And then it’s over, so you don’t have to think about it anymore.”

Topher nodded, but slowly, as if he were trying to convince himself. “I just… I hate the waiting. Once it happens… things are never going to be the same, are they? There’s going to be this – this _piece_ of me that’s changed. Whether I want it or not. And I _don’t_ – Hannah, I don’t. I don’t want it.”

Part of Hannah wanted to hug him, but another, more unreasonable part wanted to shake him the way she had done with the DVD player. She settled for giving him a small pat on the shoulder. “Are you good at fixing stuff?” she said.

“What?”

“Fixing stuff. There’s this movie I want to watch – it’s really old, so you might not like it, but it’s sort of about World War Two, and the main guy has this weird drunk friend, and it’s in black and white, so you don’t miss any of the colors. Except I can’t get the stupid thing to work. Which is dumb because I’m usually _good_ at that stuff. Better than my brothers, anyway.”

Topher looked sideways at the DVD player. “I’m not,” he said. “Not particularly. Although – you did try pressing that button, right? The circular one on the left?”

“Of course I did!”

He leaned over and pressed a button on the side. The screen flickered to life, showing Humphrey Bogart’s beaming face as he strode across the island of Martinique. Hannah scowled.

“Look, normally you just plug it in, and it turns on right after that –”

“I’ll watch it,” Topher conceded, and he even smiled slightly at the expression on her face. “For a while.”

Hannah grabbed a pillow from off her bed to lean her head against and tossed another to Topher. She could hardly believe that he was acting like a human being. It made her feel like maybe he was glad he was here, at least compared to how alone he might have been in his room as he waited for the moon to rise. It made her feel like she had made the right decision after all.

They watched in companionable silence for a while – or at least, Hannah hoped it was companionable. When they got to the part where Lauren Bacall teaches Humphrey Bogart how to whistle, David opened the door. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Topher, but he seemed to decide (wisely, in Hannah’s opinion) that it was best not to say anything.

“I wanted to stop by and remind you that you’re doing an early dinner at six,” he said. “That goes for you too, Topher.”

“What’s dinner?” said Hannah. “Bon-bons?”

“Just pizza, I’m afraid. But you can eat while you watch. Which I highly recommend you do, considering you’re watching some of the finest film noir this world has ever seen.”

“It’s not technically film noir,” said Hannah, who had developed opinions about this after several years of Aunt Marissa’s movies. “But that sounds good. Right, Topher?”

“Yeah,” said Topher. He gave another small smile. “That sounds all right.”

***

Around nine – long after Topher had left – Hannah heard a succession of feet in the hallway on their way to the elevator. She knew that the sound marked the arrival of the werewolves who still transformed in the basement for one reason or another, and that Rose and David were getting them ready, sorting them into groups so that their lock-up would be easier.

It felt strange to be _here_ , preparing for the moon on the comfort of a soft bed while so many others were being shut into cold, dark cells. And Topher was among their number – the only teenager to be down there tonight. She tried not to think about that. She had told him he would be all right; there was no reason for him not to believe it. After all, he would only have to do this once.

Shortly afterward, Rose stopped by to check in with Hannah and then locked the door so she could transform. Hannah curled into a ball on the carpet, hoping that if she willed it hard enough, the thing that happened in Tom and Andrew’s room would never happen again. Her bones stretched and her skin changed and she felt even smaller than she usually did. Maybe it was the thought of all those wolves in the basement, howling the night away without her.

Naturally, Rose and David stopped by only seconds after Hannah had found a comfortable position to sit in. She couldn’t help staring when she saw them: they were all thick gloves and long sleeves, standing a good few feet back from her and ticking words she couldn’t see off a checklist. They told her (sympathetically, but it didn’t matter) that this was all state regulation, just in case the Moon Pill stopped working again and they were caught off-guard.

Hannah signaled to them that she wanted to sleep. They left her alone after that, still watching from a corner of the room, but not saying much. It was funny, Hannah thought, how much better her doctors were than her parents at figuring out what she needed on transformation nights.

She spent the rest of the night with her eyes closed, silently begging the wolf to leave her alone. It listened. She woke up the next morning with the room in no worse shape than it had been, no numbness in her toes, and the okay from Rose and David to leave the hospital once she’d recovered.

Hannah ignored the “recovered” part and began packing up her room immediately. It didn’t matter that she was exhausted and shivering. Everything had been fine – she had _known_ it would be fine – and she was going home.

Rose brought her paperwork to sign. Hannah did it immediately, not caring how much her fingers trembled. It was over. Over, over, over, _over_ – sure, she’d have to come back again, but it would only be for the night, only for the moon, not like this, not for weeks on end.

She had her life back. The wolf had listened.

Hannah had just decided that it might not be such a bad idea to lie back and take a nap (a short one – just until her parents arrived) when she spotted a familiar figure lingering outside the open door.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“I slept this morning,” said Topher. “I’m tired, but I can’t sleep anymore. I keep… thinking too much.”

He sank into the chair opposite her bed. He looked pallid and exhausted.

Hannah didn’t really want to know, but she asked him anyway. “How was it?”

“I – I don’t know,” said Topher. “It’s… well, David says I’m a Type Two, so I don’t remember all that much. I mean, I _can_ , but – the memories are weird, if you know what I mean. Wolf memories.”

Hannah nodded as if she understood.

“You know they never caught the person who bit me?” said Topher. “The wolf just ran. It could be anybody in DC. Or maybe they were a tourist. Maybe they fled the city after it happened. Nobody knows.”

“Yeah. My friend Harry read about it in the paper.”

“I’m going to find them,” said Topher. “I decided that right after I turned back. I – I’m going to make this right. I’m going to force them to look me in the eyes. I’m going to make them _beg_ me to forgive them.”

Hannah was quiet for a moment. She was thinking of the conversation she’d almost had with her brothers, and the one she’d had with Harry a whole year before. The one where it had become evident that Hannah thought completely differently about this subject than her best friend. Topher seemed to be part of yet another school of thought, one that filled Hannah with an odd mixture of trepidation and curiosity. She decided to approach it as neutrally as she could.

“And if they don’t?” she said.

“They will,” said Topher, with weary conviction. “Wait and see.”

***

Before Hannah knew it, eighth grade had come to an end, and she was standing onstage in a white dress at graduation, her family taking up an entire row in the Trevarthen auditorium.

Hannah looked out at them, feeling a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment at just how _many_ of them there were. Her parents, Gulliver, and Moe clapped with all their might, while Tom whistled and Andrew grinned from the other end of the row. Hannah gave them each a little curtsy in return.

Among the audience were Topher and Mr. Sewell. With Rose as a liaison, Trevarthen had offered him a full scholarship for the next year – something, Hannah learned from her mother, that the school had done for her as well, five years before.

Topher hadn’t gotten used to full moons yet. Privately, Hannah wasn’t sure he ever would, but she tried her best to help, doing everything she could think of to distract him from the worst of it. She threw pre-transformation parties for him and Harry, introduced them both to more old movies, stole video games from her brothers, baked rich chocolate cakes that tasted all the more powerful because of their heightened senses. Slowly, Topher stopped looking as if he was walking to his death every time the moon began to wax. He didn’t smile much, either, but Hannah decided it was progress all the same.

The wolf kept listening. The new dosage worked. Hannah didn’t lose control again. Her parents still watched her – so closely that it made her stomach shrivel – but she pretended she didn’t notice. After a while they caught on and pretended, too.

***

A few weeks after summer began, Andrew moved out of the room that he and Tom shared. Unlike their last big fight, the catalyst for this decision seemed to have taken place in total secrecy, because one minute they were sleeping as peacefully as they ever did in their bunk beds, and the next, Andrew had hauled his mattress into the cramped storage room adjoining the kitchen. Hannah’s parents tried to mediate with little success. Neither of her brothers would admit that there was anything wrong.

“I just want some _privacy_ from time to time,” said Andrew stiffly. “Is that such a big deal? And it’s not like we were using the storage room anyway.”

“Yeah,” said Tom, not meeting Andrew’s eyes. “I mean, this twin thing can only go on for so long, you know?”

Something about his tone made Hannah madder at him than she was at Andrew. Although she had tried to avoid his room since the incident that had sent her to Curnow Hospital, she stormed up there that evening, kicking the door open instead of bothering to knock.

“It’s like you don’t even _care_ ,” announced Hannah. “The three of us used to do everything together. And now? Now it’s like you hate each other.”

“And that wouldn’t be wrong,” said Tom mildly. “But don’t shout at _me;_ I didn’t tell Andrew to move out. He did that all by himself.”

“Only because you keep being a jerk to him,” said Hannah. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. And he only cares about _himself_. And you’re both just – just ruining everything.”

“Han, listen to me –”

“I’ve been listening to you for way too long already!”

“Just – if you would just _think_ about it for a second – you’re going into high school!” Tom was more upset than she had anticipated; his face was rapidly reddening. “I was right about middle school, wasn’t I? I’ve always given you good advice. Andrew’s wrong. Tons of people drink in high school; tons of people sneak out to go to parties; _tons_ of people do stuff that their parents wouldn’t be into. You really think all those teachers and people are right about everything? Everything they tell you in those stupid classes? You think that all you have to do is obey the rules, and that makes you a good person?”

“I don’t think they’re right about everything.”

“Well, Andrew thinks they are! And that’s the problem! He thinks he just has to do what they say, and that’ll make him better than the rest of us, forever. But it just traps him into being – well, you’ve seen how he is! He’s trapped, and he won’t admit it!”

“Stop trying to make me part of your fight,” said Hannah coldly. “I’m mad at both of you.”

Tom shook his head. “No. You’re going to have to pick a side eventually. You’re too old to be mad just because we are; you need to choose. Which is it going to be? Do you want to be like me or like him?”

 _“Neither,”_ said Hannah, and she slammed the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of a beautiful friendship? Or the start of Hannah finding somebody else to perennially annoy? You decide.
> 
> I don't know if anyone else finds the dichotomy between Tom and Andrew interesting, but I see them as two ends of a spectrum. Tom is about ACTION, about DOING things; Andrew is about waiting and watching and seeing what happens before deciding to accept a change in his life. They stay in these roles from beginning to end -- it's evident in the decisions they make all the way through. (Who knocked out the wolf after it bit Hannah? Tom. Who ran and got their parents? Andrew. Were both of these actions necessary? Yes.)
> 
> I realized after writing this novel that the tension between them was a dramatized version of the tension between me and my sister at that time. I'm much more like Andrew than like Tom, and I've always struggled with that. I think that's why I wanted to explore what would happen if that tension was enough to drive a real wedge between siblings.


	12. The Iron Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone want more information about the history of werewolves? Today's your day. You'll get a little more in the next chapter, too.

Hannah wasn’t nervous about starting high school. She was more than ready to change buildings again, to move from the secluded forest path to a wide brick building that wore a leafy veil of ivy. She didn’t dread her new uniform, a crisp white blouse and pleated gray skirt with a scarlet-red tie that took her an hour to learn how to knot.

New beginnings meant wiping the slate clean. Hannah wanted to scrub eighth grade from her mind until it was spotless.

On her first day, Hannah noticed that most of the older students strived for a look she had never noticed in middle school – wry and tired and sophisticated all at once. Some of the boys slicked their hair back; others dyed it platinum blond or feather blue. The girls put on more makeup than they were technically allowed to, wearing colorful eyeshadow and mascara so thick that Hannah’s old teachers would have ordered them to wipe it off at lunchtime. The high school teachers didn’t seem to notice.

Hannah and her classmates tried to make themselves look tough, to show the upperclassmen that they were their equals. Hannah bought the same kind of tall black zip-up boots that all the sophomores seemed to have, and she mastered twisting her hair into a half-bun that looked just the right amount of lazy. By the end of October, Hannah thought that she looked pretty good. Fifteen at least.

The problem was that these were all _small_ changes. They were controllable changes; changes that were just for show; the kind of changes that Hannah liked. She had figured that by the time she got to high school, all of the big changes, the ones that had characterized middle school – the ones that changed _people_ – would be over with. She was wrong.

Topher’s presence alone was a big change – much bigger than Hannah had expected. She had assumed that he would be the same person at school that he had been in the hospital: reticent, brooding, a determined loner, and open to hanging out with her, but not necessarily with everybody else. She certainly hadn’t imagined that Topher would be _cool_. But he was – almost from the first day.

Part of her assessment about him had been right. Topher didn’t seem to care very much about what the others thought of him, and he didn’t talk much unless he found the topic of conversation interesting. But it was precisely that level of not-caring that made him cool in the first place. Within the first week, Hannah caught him striding down the hallway with Jeremy Pryce and Sam Kearney, listening vaguely to their discussion of who was the best guitar player in their class. When she asked him about it later, he shrugged.

“They’re in my Spanish class,” he said. “They just kind of came up to me. I don’t know them very well.”

“But they’re the most popular guys in the grade!” said Hannah. “And they were talking to _you._ You didn’t even have to try.”

“Why should I have to try?” said Topher. The tiny space between his eyebrows wrinkled. “They’re not worth knowing if I have to work just to get them to speak to me, are they? If that’s how it is, I’d rather be on my own.”

Hannah almost reminded him that _she’d_ had to work in order to be his friend, and did that mean he’d just stop hanging out with her if he decided she was hard to talk to? But she didn’t. Because he could sit at Sam Kearney’s lunch table if he wanted to, but every day since the school year had begun, he’d sat with her and Harry and Ella, and that had to stand for something. Even if she was still a little disturbed by the fact that he could speak so casually to people who had never given Hannah a second glance.

Harry was different, too. Without discussing it with Hannah – without even telling her it was going to happen – he came out online a few days before school started. He garnered more than a hundred likes, and people told him they loved him and stressed how brave he’d been, and Hannah made her sure that her comment was the loudest of all, full of capital letters and emoji hearts. When she saw him next, he seemed a little shaky and pale, but he also looked happier than she’d seen him for a long time. He told her that Seb had texted him.

“He wants me to meet him at Bisclavret’s on Friday after school,” he said. “Do you think it’s a date? It sounds like a date to me.”

Hannah nodded and smiled. She was happy for him. He deserved something good; he had been waiting for this; she’d knock the eyes out of anyone who dared to mess with her best friend. But inside, she felt like a part of her was shrinking. Was Harry even going to need her anymore, after this? Whether it was a real date or not, Harry and Seb would start going out soon, she knew it, and then – with Harry so sure of himself, and Hannah having never had more than that stupid kiss with Connor – well, he would still be her friend, of course; she’d kill him if he stopped being her friend, but – he wasn’t going to _need_ her. Not like before.

Hannah made sure to be extra cheerful when she was at school. She was cheerful at home, too, to show her parents how much she loved high school and how little the transition had affected her. And she succeeded, mostly, even when the full moon drew near and Topher’s mood went dark again and Tom and Andrew fought and Ella decided to eat lunch with some sophomores she’d met in her drama class.

If she told herself everything was fine, then it was.

***

The year plodded on until it was March, and the winter air began to nip at Hannah’s fingertips instead of biting them, and there were crocuses in woods at Trevarthen. Hannah spent all of her math period staring wistfully out the window. When she noticed Rory, her algebra teacher, walking toward her at the end of class, she figured he was on his way to lecture her for it.

“I was paying attention!” she said hastily. “I _was_ , I swear. I understood what you were saying about –” (she squinted at the board) “– about polygnomes and stuff –”

“Polynomials,” said Rory with a faint smile. “Yes, you did look a little distracted. But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Could you stay for a few minutes?”

Hannah’s heart gave an absurd thump. She exchanged an uncertain glance with Aimee, who was waiting for her by the door. “About what?”

“We’ll talk in a minute,” said Rory. “I’m expecting a few more people first.”

Hannah reluctantly motioned for Aimee to leave, then sat herself down at a different desk from the one she’d been at before, running her foot back and forth across the metal grid under the chair in front of her. The noise distracted her until she heard footsteps at the back of the classroom.

Rory got up, and Hannah noticed he was holding three identical white envelopes in his left hand. “Oh good, Harry and Topher,” he said. “Glad you could make it. Sit down next to Hannah, why don’t you. This will only take a couple of minutes.”

Hannah looked at her friends. Harry and Topher didn’t even take math with Rory. They were a whole level higher than she was.

Topher looked just as alarmed as she felt. “What’s this about? I’m sorry, but when people tell you they need to talk to you, and then they don’t say why –”

“I understand,” said Rory. “But I don’t want any of you to stress about this. There’s just something I wanted to discuss with you, and I thought keeping you late was probably better than shouting your business all around the classroom. That sound okay?”

Topher reddened and looked at the floor. Harry shrugged. Hannah started fidgeting with her backpack.

“Virginia ninth graders are required to take a Supernatural Smarts class,” said Rory. “At Trevarthen – since, as a private school, we can design our own curriculum – freshman year is a time to delve into deeper and more complex topics than you did in seventh grade. We’re going to talk at length about vampires, for example, and a little about huldrefolk. But for a couple of weeks in mid-April, our focus will be on –”

Hannah’s stomach jolted.

“Werewolves,” said Topher grimly.

“Well, I was going to say ‘lycanthropy’,” said Rory, shifting in his seat, “but yes. The school sees it as an important subject to cover, because of Curnow’s special circumstances. The thing is, we’re _also_ committed to making sure that nothing about these classes makes any of you feel uncomfortable.” He gestured at the envelopes. “Which is why I wrote a note to your parents, explaining the curriculum and what we’re planning to cover each day. You’re welcome to look at it yourselves – in fact, I hope you do. And then you and your parents can decide together whether you want to come to school during those two weeks.”

“Hang on a second,” said Harry, frowning. “You mean come to school at all? Like, we’d miss classes and stuff?”

Rory gave a guarded smile. “Only if you and your parents decide that’s what’s best. We’re just concerned that you might feel a little conspicuous, knowing what your classmates have been learning about. We want to ensure that you feel safe. Of course, we’d give you all the assignments you’d be missing – shoot you some e-mails, make sure you’re caught up. It’s just something to think about. For you and your parents.”

He handed around the envelopes. Hannah took hers and turned it over, so that she couldn’t see her name on it.

“Is something wrong, Hannah?”

“No,” said Hannah. “But I’ve already thought about it and already decided. We’re not going to miss school.”

“Hannah,” Topher started, but Rory broke in before he could say anything else.

“You may very well feel that way. But I want you to look at the curriculum before you decide – _and_ I want you to speak with your parents. Additionally, if you do decide to come to school, you’re under no obligation to attend the Supernatural Smarts classes. You can have a study hall in the library during that time. But I’m asking you to think about it. For more than a few minutes. For a few days.”

“We’re going to Supernatural Smarts with everyone else,” said Hannah. “That’s what’s going to happen.”

She looked pointedly at Topher and Harry, hoping that they would back her up. Neither of them did.

“ _Think_ about it,” said Rory. “You can go. Make sure you email me about what you decide by sometime next week.”

Hannah spent most of the walk home ranting.

“He thinks we can’t handle it! You saw his face – you saw how uncomfortable he was! He thinks we should be treated _differently_. Well, I think _he_ should be treated differently! You know what, we’ll email him, but it’ll be an email about the fact that he’s _wrong_ and _stupid_ and how _dare_ he keep us after school like that –”

“Hannah,” said Harry, “what exactly did he do wrong?”

“What do you mean, what did he do wrong? That whole stupid _conversation?_ He had no right to – to – _suggest_ that –”

“Not to disagree with you or anything,” said Topher, with that slight sardonic undertone Hannah so often wanted to whack him across the face for, “but I’m glad he talked to us. There’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere near Trevarthen until this thing is over.” He yanked Rory’s schedule out of the envelope and pointed to a date in the center of the page. “Look at this, Hannah. Full moon. Smack in the middle of the first week they’re studying it. You _really_ want to walk into school the day before and watch everyone stare at you?”

“I’ll deal with it,” snarled Hannah. “No. I’m going. Like every single other person in the class.” She turned. “What about you, Harry? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to think about it,” said Harry. “Like Rory said to.”

“It’s not like we need to learn about werewolves,” said Topher. “They’re only having these classes so that people don’t get themselves bitten like we did. What’s the point? You’re just going to sit there and let them tell you things you already know while everybody looks at you?”

_“Yes.”_

“I know your parents,” said Harry. “They’re not going to want you to go. Especially your mom.”

“Well, she can just – I don’t know, go jump in a lake!” said Hannah. “I’m not going to show it to her. It’s not like it’s any of her business. I’m going to email Rory myself.”

“What, like, pretend to be her?” said Topher.

“Yes,” said Hannah. “I know her password.”

And she did. She emailed Rory that night, carefully deleting all record of it from her mother’s inbox. Rory messaged her back, reiterating all the nonsensical things he’d mentioned at school, but thankfully Hannah managed to catch his message before her mother did.

 _We’re extremely proud of our daughter and know she can deal with this,_ she wrote. _We appreciate your concern, but have decided to let her do what she wants._

Then she put the whole subject out of her mind. There were four whole weeks until the lycanthropy portion of Supernatural Smarts. She certainly wasn’t going to spend them _worrying_.

***

True to Hannah’s prediction, Harry and Seb did start going out. Harry was happy, and Hannah was glad he was happy, but that shrinking feeling from before reemerged when he started going to Seb’s house after school instead of walking home with her. She almost complained to him about it until she realized that she couldn’t – that this was Harry, the nicest person in the world, and he would only think she was being selfish. This was what he had wanted. It would be wrong to be angry at him for that.

Still, Hannah couldn’t stop herself from stewing on the inside. Life wasn’t fair if you meant less to your best friend once they started dating someone. It wasn’t as though Harry didn’t hang out with Hannah anymore, but something had changed, and Hannah could tell it had changed for good. And that made her want to punch something. Hard.

Then Ella started dating Ira, and every conversation Hannah had with her became about the taste of Ira’s kisses, the line of his jaw, the concert tickets he’d bought for her birthday. So Hannah kissed Sean Singh in the corner of the gym during the spring dance, hoping it would be the way Ella described, and it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t like she’d hoped, either. She asked Sean to be her boyfriend anyway. He turned bright red and said he’d only wanted to see what kissing was like. Again, Hannah wanted to punch something.

“It’s like nothing else even _matters_ anymore,” she said to Rose, at one of the pre-moon appointments that the stupid law still demanded she make. “I hardly even see Ella or Harry anymore. And when I do, they’re always with their boyfriends, and it’s not the same. When do you think _I’m_ going to get a boyfriend?”

“When you find someone you fancy who fancies you back, I hope,” said Rose. “No other kind of relationship’s really worth having.”

“Well, I’m trying,” said Hannah. “But it’s really not that easy, you know?”

“No, it definitely isn’t,” said Rose, giving a funny, twisted smile. “I didn’t have my first proper relationship until I was much older than you. He was Welsh. Gorgeous. He was a werewolf, too, you know. He came to Curnow, and I followed him and started training here… and then he left me. Ran off one day. Didn’t even leave a note.”

“Much older? _”_ said Hannah. “How much older?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Rose, a little defensively. “Everyone does things in their own time. Don’t be too hasty, Hannah. You’ve got a lot of life left to worry about dating. And you’ve got a lot of good things in your life now.”

“I bet you could Google him,” said Hannah thoughtfully. “Your ex. See where he went. Or friend him on Facebook.”

Rose chewed the inside of her cheek. “He doesn’t have a Facebook,” she said. “And I don’t think that would be a good idea. Moving on was – difficult. Years of working through it, and sometimes I’m still not sure… but, well. You know what, Hannah, I’ve got a lot of life left, too.”

“Less than me,” said Hannah cheerfully.

“You shush,” said Rose. “I’m thirty-four, not a hundred and eight.”

***

On the first Saturday in April, Hannah woke up to a cryptic text from Harry. _Go get the Washington Post Magazine_ , he’d written. _Page eighteen. Don’t let your mom see. I think she’d probably try to take it away from you._

Hannah crept outside in her pajamas and snatched the newspaper off the lawn. Discarding the main pages, she pulled out the magazine insert, slipped it under her arm, and brought it up to her room. Just for good measure, she locked the door. Then she turned to page eighteen.

 _Inside Rumon_ , said the headline. _An Exclusive Look at One of America’s Most Clandestine Communities. Story by Isobel Robeson._

Isobel Robeson! Hannah’s stomach did a pleasurable leap. _This_ must have been what she and Rose were talking about, on that day when Hannah had first heard Topher’s name. _Turns out they want me to do something on Rumon_ , Mrs. Robeson had said. _It’ll be interesting. I haven’t been to Rumon for ages._

And then, when Rose had told her to be careful – _Rose Tarry, do you know me at all?_

Hannah grinned at the memory and looked down at the cover photo. Mrs. Robeson was standing with her hands on her hips in front of what looked like an enormous, intricately designed gate. A full moon (obviously Photoshopped in, or else Mrs. Robeson wouldn’t be standing there) was hanging above her, much larger than it should have been. A sign on the gate, etched into the metal, read _Rumon._

Hannah looked at the picture for a long time, searching for clues. Finding none, she turned the page over and started to read.

_Just two steps off the bus, I find myself in the middle of nowhere. Behind me are miles upon miles of farmland, framed by the breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains. Ahead of me is a gate._

_The last time I went through it was more than 12 years ago. A lot has changed since then._

_“Be careful,” says the bus driver as I depart. I have been his sole passenger for the last 45 minutes of the journey. “Those folks don’t always play nicely. You want to watch your step.”_

_I nod and thank him, but privately, I wonder what he would say if he knew who he was really talking to. The rumors about this place are still alive and well. But they don’t reflect what I found when I lived here myself, during the summer of 1992._

_I was 22 years old, and – since studying in the United States was barred to me at that time – had just completed my bachelor’s degree in London. Legally unable to remain in the United Kingdom and at loose ends in the United States, I made the decision to move to Rumon for a few months. If I liked it, I thought, I would stay longer. Perhaps indefinitely._

_I did like it, but I didn’t stay. I felt claustrophobic – boxed away – behind the community’s iconic iron gate. The prospect of a career in journalism sang its siren song, and once I found a newspaper willing to hire me, I grabbed my suitcase and left, ready to take on the world. And I suppose I wanted to change things – for myself and for people like me. I didn’t think I would be able to do that if I were confined to a tiny, rigidly run village in the Blue Ridge Mountains._

_But now I’m back. I’m here for a visit. This time, I know exactly how long I’m staying. It’s funny, then, that I still feel nervous as I make my way to the gate. It’s been a long time._

_Rumon, of course, has been around for much longer than I have. Built several years after the formation of the Curnow Lycanthropy Program in 1866, it began as a community for lycanthropes who wanted to avoid the (then-many) drawbacks of living among people without the disease, rather than submitting to their well-meaning but often dangerous attempts at a cure. Rumon quickly prospered, gaining a population of over 600 by 1874 and its own entirely autonomous economy. By all appearances, it seemed to be more of a success than anyone could have imagined._

_Unfortunately, the period of anti-lycanthropic unrest that followed the 1917 Harvest Moon Massacre resulted in extreme governmental pressure on Rumon and its inhabitants. Rumon’s embrace of unfettered transformations, rather than using the more conventional method of keeping symptomatic lycanthropes behind lock and key, began to make the Virginia government nervous, particularly after a series of attacks near Roanoke were traced back to a rather vicious Type Three._

_Rather than quietly close down, however, the residents of Rumon fought back against the allegations being made against them. The village’s outspokenness eventually resulted in demonstrations that did not always stop at civil disobedience._

_After a time, Rumon and the Commonwealth of Virginia came to an agreement – one that still holds today, albeit with somewhat amended rules. Rumon would be allowed to remain as it was if it built a wall around the entire community, isolating it from the towns nearby. No non-lycanthropes would be permitted inside._

_While lycanthropic non-citizens would be allowed to visit, people who elected to live in Rumon for a longer period of time, beginning at six months, would no longer be allowed to freely come and go. (This rule was relaxed in 2005, with an amendment that allows citizens to work in nearby Beringold – but the general idea still holds today.) Citizens would be given the option to leave the community only once monthly, in the days directly following the full moon._

_At least half of Rumon’s population left after these measures were announced. They were not, they explained, content to spend their lives in a cage._

_In exchange for the new regulations, Virginia gave Rumon free reign to rule itself. The community has its own laws, expectations, and traditions. And the freedom this is worth (say those who remain part of Rumon’s population) by far outweighs the loss of physical freedom. They stayed, they told me, for a sense of normality in a world which will always think of them as lesser._

_It was for that reason that I came to Rumon when I was 22. And it is for that reason that the 249 citizens who live there today are content – and proud – to live behind the iron gate._

Hannah put down the magazine. Except for the day Mrs. Robeson had mentioned it, she had never heard of Rumon before, even though it was apparently only a few hours away. She skimmed the following pages, tapping her desk with her forefinger, but nothing else jumped out. Mrs. Robeson certainly didn’t skimp on detail – she analyzed everything from Rumon’s bimonthly town meetings to the schooling of children to favorite breakfast foods. But the thing that had shocked Hannah – the fact that a place like this existed at _all_ – wasn’t touched upon again.

 _Harry,_ she texted. _It’s like a jail for werewolves? Except they’re all free?_

 _I don’t know_ , Harry texted back. _Do you think they’re free?_

Hannah thought a moment. _I guess it depends on what they think._

She rolled the magazine into a cylinder and shoved it under her mattress, where her parents wouldn’t find it. She had a suspicion that she might want to read the article again someday.


	13. The Database

Harry wasn’t coming to school. He’d told her the week before, in no uncertain terms, so that she couldn’t argue.

“I know you think it’s cowardly,” he said. “But it isn’t. It’s a choice, Hannah, and I think it’s the right one. For me.”

It was almost as if he thought Rory keeping them after class had been the right thing. But Hannah refused to entertain that line of thought any further. The point was that she would now have to attend Supernatural Smarts by herself, without Topher or Harry by her side. Which was all the more reason to show them that she was right and they were wrong – that they were making a lot of fuss about nothing.

Hannah strode into class that morning as if she were Cleopatra; she kept her gaze steady, her chin tilted upward. She came in behind Ella and in front of Aimee, so that she would be comfortably sandwiched between them. She pulled out a mystery novel that Andrew had lent her and pretended to be reading. So far, so good.

Then she noticed that, as in the other Supernatural Smarts classes she’d had at Trevarthen, there was a stapled packet of papers on her desk. She glanced down at the first page. It was covered with pictures of the moon cycle. _Next full moon_ , Rory had written beside it. _April 25, 7:57 p.m._

Hannah took out her pencil and doodled a cartoon troll beneath Rory’s handwriting. He had messy hair and an enormous nose. A speech bubble came out of his mouth. _Are you sure?_ he said. _I was pretty sure it was just a piece of cheese._

She knew that Topher’s prediction had been fulfilled, that despite the idle chatter of the early morning, people were already staring at her. But that was no reason to have stayed home. It was stupid to be scared of people looking at you – eyes weren’t dangerous. Well, not unless they were laser eyes, and as far as Hannah knew, nobody at Trevarthen had those.

Still, Hannah pretended she hadn’t noticed, because being stared at wasn’t a _nice_ feeling. Not as far as feelings went.

Rory flicked a switch, and the PowerPoint he’d made shone onto the screen at the front of the classroom. _Lycanthropy_ , Hannah read. _Day One._

“Settle down, everyone,” he said, clapping his hands. “For the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be studying something that really impacts our community. Naturally, there are a lot of myths and stereotypes about lycanthropy, but since so many of you have lived here for most of your lives, I’d expect you to be a little better educated than most. If you could raise your hands, I’d like us to make a list of the things you know, the things you’ve heard, and the things you’d like to find out. Why don’t we start off with the really obvious stuff – what _is_ lycanthropy, in the most basic sense? What does it mean?”

Jeremy Pryce raised his hand. “Um, it’s Greek, isn’t it? It means ‘wolf man,’ or something like that.”

“Excellent,” said Rory, writing Jeremy’s translation on the board. “Yes, it does. _Lykos_ means ‘wolf,’ _anthropos_ means ‘man’; put them together, and you have ‘lycanthropy’, which is the preferred term for the condition. And what does it mean to have lycanthropy? Joe?”

“It makes people turn into wolves on the full moon,” said Joe Comyns. “Even if they don’t want to. They can’t control it.”

Now even Ella and Aimee were looking at Hannah.

“Good,” said Rory, without noticing. “Yes, there aren’t very many lycanthropes who would choose to turn into a wolf on the full moon. And why is that? Natalie Grace?”

“Well, it’s not… nice, is it?” said Natalie Grace. “It’s supposed to hurt. A lot.”

Rory nodded. _Painful,_ he wrote. _Involuntary._

Ella elbowed Hannah hard in the ribs. “Han,” she hissed in her ear. “You doing okay?”

“I _was_ until you elbowed me.”

“You sure?”

“No,” said Hannah. “I lied.”

“…and that’s why we have the famous Curnow Lycanthropy Program. People with the disease travel here from all over the country – all over the world, even – to get the support they need while being treated with the respect they deserve. Unfortunately, that is _not_ the case in many other places – and yes, I mean here in the US, too.”

Rory pressed a button, and a map appeared on the screen. “Virginia has always had a remarkably open attitude towards lycanthropes. This might seem strange, especially when you consider its history, but the origins of the Curnow Lycanthropy Program go very far back – all the way to the 1800s. Since that time, we’ve seen that lycanthropes do best when they’re able to take charge of their condition themselves. Other states are still working on learning that.”

He pointed to an area of the map that was highlighted in red. “These places – states in the deep south – can still be hard places for lycanthropes to live. There’s a lot of fear there, especially after the release of the Moon Pill, which allows people with the most severe forms of lycanthropy to keep their human mental state after transformation. A lot of southern politicians worry that the Moon Pill could provide an excuse for transformed lycanthropes to bite people without restrictions, even though they have absolutely no reason to do so. It’s a big debate down there right now.”

Rory moved to another area of the map, this one highlighted in green. “We have another situation up here, in the northern states – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and parts of Canada, too. All these places are heavily forested, especially as you move further north. Back in the old days, the forests were the only safe places for lycanthropes to transform. Eventually, because so many of them became exiled from their homes after being bitten, they started forming small communities there.”

“Didn’t you use to live in Wisconsin?” whispered Ella.

Hannah didn’t respond.

“After a while, the people living in these communities began to rebel. They didn’t see why they had to live separately from their families when they were human twenty-eight nights out of twenty-nine. Most of them protested peacefully, but there were a few who didn’t. On one full moon, a particularly reactionary group positioned themselves near the city of Milwaukee and bit every person they came across. Northern lycanthropy laws have been stricter than anywhere else ever since – often unfairly so. They’ve made some strides in the past few years, but they still have a long way to go.”

Hannah stared at the projector, at the little green state of Wisconsin at the top of the screen. Her brain whirred; she clenched her fists under her desk.

That was why Dr. Trapp had been so awful. That was why the nurses had hated her so much. _That_ was why they’d moved.

And nobody had told Hannah a thing about it. Not at the time, and not later on, when she was older. When she could have understood.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” said Ella. “Your face is kind of red.”

Hannah back to Rory, trying to ignore the faint buzzing in her ears. He had moved on to another slide. She forced herself to pay attention.

“…and that’s another major issue within the lycanthropic community,” Rory was saying. “Before the Internet, it was still a problem, of course, but not as much of one. People had to visit their city halls in order to get access to these records, and most folks didn’t care enough to go sifting through them just because they could. But nowadays, people can look this stuff up any time they want. Here – we’ll find an example.”

He clicked a link on the screen, and an official-looking website popped up. _United States Lycanthropy Database_ , it read. _Start a new search?_

Rory clicked _yes_ , and the website gave him a form to fill out. Under _Name_ he typed “John Doe” and then moved to the next screen. This one was much more official, with a photograph of a tired-looking man at the top and a detailed chart at the bottom.

“Take a moment to look at this,” said Rory. “And then, when you’re ready, tell me why you think it might be a problem.”

It took a while for the full impact of what she was seeing to hit Hannah. Beneath the photo, there were some basic facts – _Birthday, January 01, 1970; Height, 6 ft., 1 in.; Weight, 174 lbs._ They had described John Doe’s eye and hair color, too, and something called _Distinguishing Features_ , of which he apparently had none.

Then Hannah’s eyes moved down to the chart, where a minefield of further information lay waiting.

_Type: 2 (Medium Risk)  
Date of Bite: January 01, 1990  
Location of Bite: District of Columbia  
Registered: Curnow Hospital, Curnow, Virginia  
Usual Location of Transformation: See above  
Interstate Mobility Permitted: Yes  
Passport Permitted: Yes  
_

John Doe obviously wasn’t a real person, but the photo on the screen was of someone who existed, or who had existed once, and he didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved to be talked about like that – like they were nothing but a liability, the worst part of their life story written in neat and tidy order on an online database for anyone to read.

Hannah felt a familiar fury building behind her chest. She tried to push it away until she realized that she had no desire to. That there was something she had to find out before she could let go of this feeling completely.

She gritted her teeth and raised her hand as high as it would go. Immediately, everyone else who had raised a hand dropped it.

Rory’s forehead wrinkled.

“Anyone?” he said. “Does anyone know why lycanthropes might not want this information to be so readily available?” He looked around hopefully, but in vain. “Er… Hannah?”

“Look me up,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Look me up,” she said firmly. “I want to see what it says about me.”

“Hannah… listen… I understand you might have some concerns – but this class isn’t supposed to be for –”

“Look me up _now_ ,” said Hannah, not quite believing that she was speaking this way to a teacher, but not stopping herself, either. _“You_ showed this to us, which means that everyone knows about it, which means every single person in this class is going to look me up anyway when they get home, whether or not I have _concerns_. So why don’t you just make it easy for them?”

“Hannah,” said Rory, a little more softly. “Do you need to step out for a minute?”

“No,” said Hannah. Her face had gone very hot. “I need you to look me _up_. _Now_.”

Rory looked at her for a moment, gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, turned back toward the computer, and clicked on the red “X” in the corner of the screen. The stares of her classmates became holes that burned through her skin.

“You’re dismissed, Hannah,” he said. “I’ll see you in class in two weeks.”

Shaking, Hannah stumbled out of her chair and heaved her backpack over one shoulder. _Don’t look at people_ , she thought _. Especially not Ella and Aimee. Don’t look at Jeremy Pryce; don’t look at Ira; don’t look at Chloe. Ignore them all. Just walk._

 _No, don’t walk._ Storm _._

And she did. She stormed her way out the door, away from the building, and into the warm April air. She fumed on the front steps, trying to think, unable to think, her thoughts blocked by pure, undiluted rage. She couldn’t go home. They’d know something had happened – she’d have to explain – they’d find out about the e-mail she’d sent – they’d _pity_ her. She couldn’t go to Harry’s, either. His mother didn’t work, and she would certainly mention Hannah’s arrival to her mother the next time they had coffee.

That left Topher. He and his father had moved into a little house a few streets away from Trevarthen after he’d been released from the hospital, and Hannah had only been there a handful of times. But he was at home studying, his dad wouldn’t be around, and she could tell her parents that she’d been there after school without lying.

Good. She had a plan.

She started walking and concentrated all her energy on not allowing her stupid, disloyal eyes to leak. She had not cried since she was nine years old. She had no intention of ever doing it again.

 _Are you okay?_ Aimee texted.

 _Love you,_ said Ella.

Hannah turned her phone off.

Then Topher was opening the door, and he was asking her why she had such a strange look on her face, and everything was a vicious, angry blur for a while. Somewhere along the way, Hannah found herself on Topher’s couch, where she curled up with her arms around her knees while he went into the kitchen to make them nachos. Eventually the world righted itself a little more, and the pressure in Hannah’s chest became bearable, and she was able to look Topher in the eye without glowering.

“You’re good at this,” she said, a little grudgingly. “Being nice about stuff.”

“Thanks,” said Topher.

“Except you’re not going to feel like being nice anymore,” said Hannah. “Not after I show you something. Something that Rory showed the _entire class_. Before kicking me out. In front of everyone.”

She waited, to see if Topher would ask her to elaborate. He did not.

“Get your laptop,” said Hannah. “It’s on there.”

 _United States Lycanthropy Database_ , she showed him. _Start a new search?_

“Hang on,” said Topher slowly. “I’ve seen this before; I found it when I was in the hospital. And it was on Rory’s syllabus, too – you never looked at it?”

Hannah shook her head, but her mind was on the screen.

_Name: Hannah Penelope Cobham._

And there she was. Not _her_ her – an old her, a smaller her, a third-grade her in a brand-new Trevarthen school uniform. Arms crossed. Looking defiantly at the camera.

 _Birthday: May 29, 1999. Height: 5 ft., 5 in…._ that was how tall Hannah was _now_. Someone must have updated it. Her parents? Rose and David?

She scrolled down.

_Type: 3 (High Risk)  
Date of Bite: June 01, 2007  
Location of Bite: Mazaska, Wisconsin  
Registered: Curnow Hospital, Curnow, Virginia  
Usual Location of Transformation: At patient’s home  
Interstate Mobility Permitted: Yes (reevaluate 05/29/2017)  
Passport Permitted: Yes (reevaluate 05/29/2017)  
_

And there were other things, too – things she hadn’t seen on John Doe’s page. Things she hadn’t even told Topher.

 _Lycanthropic Episodes: Yes_ (That was in red – bright blood red.)  
_Date of last episode: December 23, 2012_  
_Hospitalization: Yes  
__Control: In progress_

Hannah peered at Topher from the corner of her eye. She could tell he was surprised, that he was still taking all of this in – but again, he didn’t say anything. Part of her wished she could tell him how grateful she was for that. But there was no way to do that without acknowledging what they had just read.

“He showed it to the entire class,” she said. She pressed the “back” button, so that her photo vanished. She tapped idly on the mouse pad and realized that she was spelling her name in Morse Code. _H-A-N-N-A-H._

“It’s interesting, isn’t it,” said Topher, “that they don’t record the names of the people who bit us. You’d think that would be the most important thing for the public to know. Which werewolves are most likely to attack them.”

“But how would they do that?” said Hannah. “All the ones that people know about are in jail.”

She knew where this was going: Topher’s obsession with finding his biter had only grown more intense, even though more than a year had passed since his attack.

His mouth tightened. “They’re _not_ all in jail. If they can prove that the situation was out of their control, they only get five years, maximum. And a lot of the time, they get let out early for good behavior. You didn’t know that?”

Hannah shook her head.

Topher gave a wry smile. “For somebody who’s been a werewolf for six years, you’re really not great at it.”

Hannah felt a prickle of irritation. “No, I’d just rather do other things than _think_ about it all time. Anyway, since nobody knows who bit you, it wouldn’t have helped, even if they did put it online.”

“It would have if it was somebody who had been in jail before and got released,” said Topher. “And I bet it was. I’ve been reading up on this stuff. There are people who _like_ transforming, you know. People who refuse to take Moon Pills, even if they’re Type Twos or Threes. They lie to their doctors, and they go out to some forest, and – and don’t care who they hurt.”

“That’s ridiculous. Nobody could like transforming; they’d have to be completely insane. And the person who bit you wasn’t in a forest. They were in a city.”

“So maybe they _were_ insane! Maybe they wanted to bite someone. Maybe nobody knows they’re a werewolf. Maybe they’ve kept it hidden. Maybe they’re not even in the database.”

“Maybe,” said Hannah doubtfully.

Topher rubbed his face and said nothing for a few minutes. He took over the computer and began a round of online Tetris, his brows knitted in concentration that had nothing to do with the game. Hannah was just trying to think of something funny to distract him with when he suddenly said, “You know what we should do tomorrow? We should go to DC.”

Hannah blinked. “What, like Washington, DC?”

“Like Washington, DC,” said Topher firmly. “Yeah. Think about it – there’s no way you’re going back to school tomorrow, is there? And my dad will be at work, and your mom doesn’t know anything about what happened today. So it’s not like anyone will find out.”

Hannah thought about it for a second, then nodded ferociously. “If the others are going to be learning werewolf crap all day, we might as well have an awesome time while they’re doing it. Where should we go? I’m okay with anywhere except the zoo – I hate that place. The Spy Museum is cool… kind of expensive, though… actually, wait a second. How are we going to get there?”

“There’s a bus,” said Topher. “It goes to Leesburg, and then you can grab another one from there. We’ll do the same thing on the way home. We’ll be back before anyone knows we’re gone.”

He pulled up an online bus schedule, and he and Hannah planned their day. She would meet him at the bus stop with her empty backpack the next morning, under the guise of going for a quick run before school. They shook hands, and Hannah left for home.

“How was your day?” said Hannah’s mother.

“Excellent,” said Hannah. But she didn’t look her in the eye. Washington, DC, aside, she hadn’t forgotten what she’d learned about Wisconsin that morning. She hadn’t forgotten that there were things she still wasn’t being told.

***

It was two days until the full moon, and Hannah’s colors were gone when she woke up. For once, she didn’t mind. It seemed right, somehow.

She came downstairs and had breakfast and her Moon Pill. Then, giving her mother and father a cheery smile, she headed for the bus stop on Trevarthen Hill to meet Topher.

He was already there, looking tired and irritable. “I lost my colors this morning,” he said. “We have to take the red line. What if we aren’t able to tell which one it is?”

“Relax. Colorblind people take the bus all the time. The only other lines are yellow and blue, right? And we can see both of those colors. We’ll be fine.”

Still, Topher didn’t stop fidgeting until the bus pulled up and he’d double-checked with the bemused bus driver that it _was_ red, just to make sure. As they sat down and the bus began to move towards the city, Hannah felt a strange sense of victory wash over her. She’d never done anything like this before – breaking _real_ rules, not just silly ones; skipping school; going somewhere without telling even one other person. Was this how Tom felt all the time? Invincible?

Hannah grinned.

The rest of the plan went just as smoothly. Their bus from the Leesburg Park & Ride to Washington was late, but only by half an hour, and Hannah ate about half of the nearby vending machine’s beef jerky in that time. Topher, aware that she was only doing this because of the impending full moon, refused to touch it. Hannah rolled her eyes and wafted the smell under his nose until he snatched the bag and threatened to throw it out.

Finally, they arrived in DC, on a street corner in the middle of a bustling road, all gleaming white buildings and anxious-looking government employees. Topher had decided that they should go to Chinatown for lunch, so they located the nearest Metro station and rode to the Gallery Place-Chinatown stop. Hannah had never been there before, so she used her phone to take a photo of the enormous, ornate Friendship Archway that marked the entrance. As she headed toward it, Topher stopped her.

“Wait,” he said, with an odd look on his face. “I want to see something first. It’ll only take a minute.”

Hannah was beginning to be hungry despite the beef jerky, but she shrugged and nodded. Topher led her away from the archway and down a street that featured a Radio Shack and some fancy-looking clothing stores. They passed a seafood market, and the smell of raw fish slammed into Hannah’s unsuspecting nostrils.

“Where are we going?” asked Hannah, holding her nose, but Topher just marched them onward.

It was only when they reached a large building with mazelike designs on the brick that Hannah understood what Topher was doing. She stopped in her tracks and glanced up at the Verizon Center. Topher stopped, too.

“Topher…” she said, and then stopped herself. She didn’t know what to say. It didn’t feel right to be mad at him, not after everything he’d done for her, but – had he lied to her about wanting a fun day off in the city? Just so that he could come back to this place? Just so he could stand here and _brood?_

“This is where it happened.” Topher’s face looked faintly gray. “I was… I was standing in line with my dad. We were about to go inside. They had just started checking people’s tickets. And then it just – I mean, completely out of nowhere – it just _happened_. No time to react. No time to think. I think it came from that corner over there.”

He pointed. Hannah could see only white-columned buildings, advertisements for sports games, the outline of the Daguerre Memorial. People wearing suits and pencil skirts hurried up and down the street, probably on their lunch breaks.

Topher wasn’t looking at any of them. There was a feeling of expectation to the way he paced from one side of the sidewalk to the other, to the way his eyebrows had shot together in a hard line and then stayed there. It was clear to Hannah that whatever he’d been hoping for, whatever he thought he’d accomplish by coming back, he hadn’t found it. He hadn’t realized that to everyone else in the city, the Verizon Center was just a place to walk by on the way to work, or to catch a hockey game as a treat.

“You thought they’d come back,” said Hannah matter-of-factly. “Part of you thought they’d be here, waiting for you. That’s why you wanted to come to DC.”

Topher turned his head toward the Verizon Center, looked back at the street, and finally nodded at Hannah. “Stupid,” he said. “Wasn’t it.”

“Only a little bit,” said Hannah. She looked at him critically. He was very pale – much paler than a person should look, two days before the full moon. Without really thinking about it, she gave him a strong, furious hug, and then realized that she hadn’t done it before. And also that he had let her.

“We can still have adventures,” he said, a little sheepishly. “I didn’t mean for this to be the whole thing. There’s a really good Chinese restaurant down there. And the Spy Museum isn’t far away.”

“Good,” said Hannah, sounding gruffer than she meant to. And she led the way this time, until they reached a restaurant that Topher deemed suitable, and they sat at a little booth in the corner and ordered two stir-fries with beef.

He was quiet as they ate, and Hannah could see, as if through a window in his head, that he was replaying the memory of his bite over and over again. He didn’t seem to taste any of the meal, though it was quite possibly the best Chinese food Hannah had ever had. He had looked just like that, Hannah thought, on the first day he had lost his colors.

The helpless feeling from that day came back, but Hannah wasn’t helpless anymore. She knew Topher now. She knew how to help him.

She kicked him under the table.

“Hey,” she said. “You think we could convince the waitress we’re twenty-one if we try hard enough? There’s piña coladas on the menu. I’ve always wanted to try a piña colada.”

“That’s not very Chinese,” said Topher. “I thought we were trying to be authentic.”

Hannah laughed in hopes of getting him to laugh, too. To her surprise and relief, he did. “Do you realize that you’re a hipster? Because you’re a hipster. You’re so pretentious sometimes.”

“I’ve never heard you use the word ‘pretentious’ before,” said Topher. “Maybe you’re taking after me.”

“And your weird-ass thing where you use words from, like, a random page in the dictionary? As if!”

“I mean, you’re the one who wants to grow a beard.”

“Beards are awesome! They make you look intimidating! People _listen_ to you if you have a beard; they want your advice!”

“Beard or not, if someone wanted your advice, Han, I’d be terrified for them.”

Hannah was having so much fun that she didn’t realize they’d overstayed their welcome and their waitress was tapping her foot by the bar, giving them meaningful looks. Hannah glanced at her watch and was surprised to find that it was almost three.

“We’d better get back,” she said regretfully. “No Spy Museum after all. That’s okay. We’re kind of like spies anyway, since we did this in the first place and nobody knows about it.”

“Next time,” said Topher.

Hannah grinned.

***

Getting home was even easier than leaving. Their bus arrived in Curnow later than they had expected, but all it took was a quick text to her mother that she had stayed after school with Topher, and Hannah was fine.

She came through the front door with a bubble of triumph in her belly. She hadn’t realized before how much power she held. She hadn’t fully understood that doing things like going to DC in secret was even possible; not until she had done it. But she _had_ done it. And no one had stopped her.

For the first time, Hannah really felt like she was growing up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a terrible Warren Zevon joke in this chapter that I suspect nobody will notice except me, so I'll just tell you what I've done in hopes that you won't roll your eyes too hard. Here it is: (I believe) that a stir-fry with beef is basically the same thing as beef chow mein. So that's what my Werewolves of DC are getting a big dish of. Ahem.
> 
> Also, thank you to the mysterious person (people?) who gave me a bunch of kudos in a single day earlier this week! I know Hannah's hard to find on a website with such an enormous scope as AO3, and I'm tickled pink that someone (someones?) read and enjoyed it.


	14. Champagne and Chocolate

Aunt Marissa and Daniel were getting married. Aunt Marissa told Hannah’s family at the end of the summer, through speakerphone as they were all eating dinner, so that everyone could hear the news at once. After she hung up, the entire dining room table exploded in cheers.

“So it looks like we’ll be going back to Wisconsin,” said Hannah’s father, looking dazed. “In _January_ – which is insane, of course – we’re all going to be snowed in, I don’t understand how she can think this is a good idea – but I guess the rates will be cheaper.”

Back to Wisconsin! Hannah couldn’t wrap her mind around it. They hadn’t visited even once since moving to Curnow, even though Hannah’s father kept insisting that they would.

“It’s a little expensive right now,” he’d say. “Can’t afford plane tickets for everyone. Maybe next year.”

Now there was no choice. Expensive or not, they were going back, because Hannah’s father couldn’t miss his sister’s wedding, and Hannah was going to be a bridesmaid, and the rest of them certainly weren’t going to be left behind. Hannah wondered what it would be like. Cold, she thought – Milwaukee in the winter had definitely been cold. She tried, but she couldn’t remember much else.

But as the months went on, it was almost like she did. Something about the prospect of returning to Wisconsin seemed to ignite a long-quenched spark within the family. Her mother entered a rare phase in which there was hardly ever an eidolon at her side. She and Hannah’s father began to tell stories at dinner that Hannah hadn’t heard in years, from her mother’s terror at bringing a premature Tom and Andrew home from the hospital to the historic blizzard that kept them from leaving the house for three days.

“And even when we were able to get out, it wasn’t easy,” said Hannah’s mother. “None of you kids liked your snowsuits very much. Hannah in particular used to scream every time I put her in one.”

Both of her parents got faraway looks in their eyes when they were telling these stories. Something about it made Hannah feel squirmy.

Her excitement was mainly focused on seeing Aunt Marissa again, and maybe some long-lost places from her childhood that would suddenly feel tremendously important when she returned to them. It didn’t seem impossible that everything she’d forgotten over the years would return. All it would take would be a walk down a familiar road, a hug from Aunt Celeste, a scoop of ice cream from Luna’s. She’d take a lick, and it would all come flooding back.

***

They arrived at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport in the evening, a week after Christmas. It was snowing lightly when they exited the airport, and more snow was heaped on the sides of the road. Hannah sniffed at the chilly, bitter air. The scent kindled something dim at the back of her head that was almost like a memory, but didn’t have any substance for Hannah to hold on to. Any attempt at grasping for it sent the whole thing tumbling through her fingers like powder.

Aunt Celeste and Uncle Jon picked them up. Their only child, Meghan, was twenty-four and in the middle of a backpacking trip through Australia. That meant there was just enough room for the Cobhams to squeeze into their home for a week.

It was strange to see them again. They looked so much older than they had before – there were wrinkles on their cheeks and more around their eyes – but they were still the same people Hannah had always known. She told herself that should make greeting them less awkward. It didn’t.

“Oh my lord, look at how tall you’ve gotten,” said Aunt Celeste. “How old are you now? Thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen,” said Hannah.

“Fifteen! I remember when you were _born_. I s’pose you’ve got a boyfriend? A bunch of beaus chasing you around?”

“Oh, there are a few,” said Hannah, lying through her teeth. “I just have to get around to picking one.”

The dim, not-quite-remembering feeling only grew stronger as Uncle Jon drove them home and the car wove through the city streets. Hannah had walked down this road countless times when she was little… there was a candy shop at the end of it, wasn’t there? And that park – Hannah was sure she had played in that park. She could remember the gritty feel of the sandbox and the heat of the metal slide. But somehow, she couldn’t quite match up the park she was looking at with the one in her mind. The arrangement of trees was the same; the red and blue jungle gym was the same; but in the dark of night, abandoned, it seemed to belong to a different world.

Finally, they pulled up in front of the house, a place where Hannah had been countless times before the move to Curnow. She pushed furiously at her brain, trying to extract more memories. She could only remember tiny things, random things, pointless things. Things that might matter to an eight-year-old, but not to anyone else.

“Feels weird to be back,” said Andrew, looking up at the red wood walls and gray slate roof. “Feels like it’s been longer than seven years. Do you remember it, Han?”

“Not really,” Hannah admitted. “It’s like I can remember the _idea_ of it, but not what it was actually like.”

“I don’t remember it at all,” said Moe happily. “But I’m glad we don’t live here anymore. I’m freezing. Is it this cold all the time?”

“Colder, sometimes,” said Tom. “Just you wait.”

Hannah texted Topher, Harry, and Ella that night. _Dying of boredom,_ she wrote, from where she lay in one of Aunt Celeste’s guest bedrooms. _Literally taking my last breaths. Farewell, cruel world._

It wasn’t true, not really – the day had been too confusing, too unfamiliarly familiar, for her to be bored in the slightest – but it was what you were supposed to say when you spent your winter break visiting relatives. And she didn’t know what else to say.

***

The next day, Hannah’s parents set her and her brothers loose.

“I’m taking Gulliver and Moe to see the sights, and your mom has to help Aunt Marissa with some things, so the rest of you are free to roam,” said their father.

Hannah didn’t know where she wanted to go. Andrew had decided that he wanted to take a taxi to the science and technology center and left before Hannah had even gotten her shoes on. And while she and Tom had long since gotten back on good terms, Hannah wasn’t sure that his idea of wandering aimlessly around the city appealed to her, either.

So when Aunt Celeste suggested a trip to Luna’s, Hannah accepted immediately. She still felt a little weird around her aunt, but it would be better than being alone, and maybe it would get easier if she had the chance to talk to her for a while. Plus, there would be ice cream – _Luna’s_ ice cream, which Hannah had fantasized about for years.

She had forgotten how short the car ride was from Aunt Celeste’s house – only a couple of blocks – but immediately recognized the bright purple awning that had marked some of the best days of her childhood. Since it was a Tuesday morning, nobody else was inside except for a couple of college students, holed up in a corner on their laptops.

“Not very many low-fat options,” Aunt Celeste observed. “I guess it’ll be the Castaway Coconut for me – what about you, Hannah?”

She didn’t know. Surely there couldn’t have been so many flavors when she’d lived here before? She skimmed over cotton candy, avocado, maple ’n bacon, mountain blackberry, French toast, and ginger lemon, and finally landed on bittersweet chocolate. Aunt Celeste led the way to a table, and they both sat down.

If Hannah had thought she’d get the chance to lead the conversation, she was wrong. She had either forgotten or underestimated how much Aunt Celeste liked to talk, and she was immediately interrogated about _which_ of her “beaus” she was fondest of. Hannah muttered a few words about Sean Singh and tried to make it sound like she had turned him down instead of the other way around.

“Oh yes, playing hard to get.” Aunt Celeste nodded wisely. “Looks like my sister raised you well. Which – well, honestly, while we’re talking about Grace, I was wondering –” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Has she been doing any better lately with the – with the – well, _you know?”_

Hannah frowned. “What?”

“The _eidolon_ ,” pressed Aunt Celeste, as if it should have been obvious. “Is it still there? I noticed it wasn’t with her when she arrived, but I’d heard –”

“No,” said Hannah, cutting her off. “It isn’t. That was a long time ago. She’s fine now.”

“Are you sure?” said Aunt Celeste. “Because your Aunt Rosalie told me she said she’s still having trouble. I’m only trying to find out if there’s any way I can help. Your mother is a proud lady. She doesn’t like to talk about the things that upset her very much, but sometimes –”

“There isn’t,” said Hannah. “She’s fine. She’s _fine.”_

But if she thought that would put her back on firmer ground, she was wrong. Aunt Celeste’s face had changed, but not in a way that brought her back to normal; she looked even cannier now, more inclined to poke her nose in places it didn’t belong.

“On that note,” she said, “I’d like _you_ to know, Hannah, if there’s anything me or Jon or Meghan can do for you – anything at all – you only have to ask. It must be so hard sometimes. I think about you more than you know. I remember were all so worried when we thought you’d have to go to Lervis – the way your parents had to sneak you out of the hospital that last time! But you’re doing all right now?”

Hannah took an entire minute before she said anything. She spent a while scraping the last remnants of bittersweet chocolate out of her bowl.

“I’m fine,” she said. “What’s Lervis?”

Aunt Celeste suddenly looked worried. “Lervis, you know – where they wanted to send you before the laws changed? It’s all different now, of course. Not even a little bit the same. I think it’s more of an outreach program these days –”

“What are you talking about?” said Hannah coldly.

“This ice cream,” said Aunt Celeste, now blinking very fast, “is delicious.”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“I – I don’t think it’s really my place to say. I’d be glad to talk to your parents tonight – I’ll tell them we had this conversation. And then they can answer any questions you might have.”

Hannah didn’t even have to think about it; she shook her head. “No. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

Aunt Celeste still looked troubled. Hannah let her.

The instant they got back to the house, Hannah took out her phone, went to the guest room she was sharing with Moe and Gulliver, and locked the door behind her. She had pried the WiFi password out of Uncle Jon the night before, which made her Google search easy.

 _Lervis Wisconsin werewolf laws,_ Hannah typed, and then decided Wikipedia probably knew what it was talking about. The summary was very short, but reading it made Hannah feel like her heartbeat had tripled in speed.

_The Lervis Lycanthropy Center is located in Lervis, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, just south of the city of Milwaukee. The facility was created in 1920 during the aftermath of the Harvest Moon Attacks, as a result of the state’s 1919 Lycanthrope Holding Act. Under Wisconsin state law, all Type Three lycanthropes, along with others who had been declared a danger to the community, were moved to the Lervis facility and others of its kind across the state. Lervis residents were not permitted to leave the area and were required to be supervised by staff members at all times._

_When the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Phelan v. Wisconsin and declared the 1919 Act unconstitutional in 2011, Lervis’ mission changed. The facility now provides services to lycanthropes across the state of Wisconsin, most notably assisting with the retrieval of previously unobtainable records. Lervis’ records cover much more information than is available to the public at large, including identity of infector, doctor’s notes for former residents, and travel restrictions._

_Lervis also remains home to thirty-eight adult residents, who have opted not to leave the facility for a number of reasons. A complete staff changeover has occurred as a result of the 2011 decision._

There was also a picture. Hannah didn’t have to look at it for more than a few seconds to know that it was the same place she had been forced to spend her first two full moons.

She shoved her phone under her pillow. Her mind was moving at hyper-speed. If the article was saying what she thought it was – if it was saying that _she_ might have had to –

Then that meant –

That meant there had been a _very_ good reason for the move to Curnow.

If the law had changed in 2011… Hannah thought back. She had been twelve. Her life had been made up of gossiping with Ella; playing video games with Harry; avoiding her math homework; teasing Tom and Andrew.

If they had stayed in Milwaukee… if they hadn’t moved…

She half-remembered the day Aunt Celeste had referred to. The day her parents had fought with Dr. Trapp in the hallway, had stolen her away from the hospital before anyone noticed. She mostly remembered how tired and annoyed she had been. How little she had understood.

They had never told her.

Hannah swallowed, shook her head, and ordered herself to ignore the whole thing until the trip was over. _Then_ she would deal with her parents as she saw fit. For now, she had every intention of enjoying her time as a bridesmaid.

***

The day of the wedding dawned brighter and sunnier than anyone could have hoped. If it weren’t for the puddles of melted snow that threatened to ruin the train of Aunt Marissa’s gown, Hannah would have thought that there couldn’t be a more perfect day for a January wedding.

She spent the early morning with her mother at a salon, where they had their hair pinned up in intricate curls, with little tendrils escaping down the backs of their necks. Then, with a swoop of a few brushes, a makeup artist made Hannah’s eyes look intriguingly dark, her lips smooth, pink, and sweet. Hannah did not know what to make of her reflection. It didn’t seem like _her_ , exactly, and that felt weird – but that didn’t mean she didn’t like it.

Then it was time to change into her bridesmaid’s dress, which Hannah had fallen in love with on sight and wished was acceptable to wander around in every day. It was yellow, with a wide, sweeping sash and a whimsical little bow on the right sleeve. Susan and Chantal, who were Aunt Marissa’s best friends and the other two bridesmaids, wore the same dress, but in pink and blue. Hannah and her mother drove down to the church to meet them, accompanied by Moe, who was the ring bearer.

As Hannah made to enter the chapel, her mother put a hand on her arm and stopped her. “Just stay still for a minute,” she said. “Just… let me look.”

She stood there watching Hannah for a moment, saying nothing, an odd expression playing across her face. Hannah stood awkwardly in front of the chapel door. She could feel her pinned-up curls starting to fall already and hoped no one would notice. She gave her mother a quick hug and escaped into the little side room where she had been told to wait.

Susan and Chantal were already there. Although they were easily twenty years older than Hannah, they exclaimed at her dress and chatted away as if they’d known her for years. But the best part was Aunt Marissa herself.

She was aglow. Her dress was lacy white with silver trim; it was one of the prettiest wedding dresses Hannah had ever seen. The most beautiful thing of all was her eyes, which were shining with excitement.

“I want you to hold my train,” she said to Hannah, just before they entered the nave. “You’re my maid of honor. It’s your privilege.”

And in they went. Hannah lifted Aunt Marissa’s train and concentrated on keeping it straight and unwrinkled as they made their way down the aisle. In front of them, Daniel’s little nieces, Polly and Maren, sprinkled fragrant lavender clippings across the floor. Next to the altar, Daniel was watching, his eyes bright and fixed on Aunt Marissa.

Hannah tried to keep her face even as they took their rings from Moe and said their vows, but something stirred inside her chest, and she had to fight to keep it down as the priest raised his hands and pronounced them married. When the couple embraced to the sighs of everyone in the congregation, Hannah finally allowed her eyes to swim a little, although she did not let any tears run down her face. That way, it didn’t count as crying.

At last, the wedding bells sounded, and everyone processed outside to the snow-covered garden, tossing white rice and dried lavender after the bride and groom. Aunt Marissa gave Hannah one last hug before she left.

“I’ll see you at the reception,” she said. “No more long faces. I’m your aunt and I always will be, and if you think I’ll care any less because I’ve got Daniel with me now, you’re wronger than wrong. I still order you to call me whenever you like. I gave you that phone for a reason, you know.”

Hannah wouldn’t have liked that kind of sentimentality from anyone else, but from Aunt Marissa, it was okay. She let her face rest against Aunt Marissa’s shoulder for a moment and then let her go.

The reception was held at a boat club on the harbor overlooking Milwaukee Bay, which was glistening half-melted beneath the stars. Lanterns had been hung ceiling to ceiling, long tables with placards had been set with fancy-looking silverware, and a divine-smelling buffet had been laid out just beyond the dance floor.

Hannah had been seated at a table that looked like it was mostly occupied by college-aged cousins of Daniel’s. She supposed that Aunt Marissa had suggested it, to give her a break from her brothers.

“So you go to the University of Wisconsin?” she asked a boy called Spencer, who was sitting on her right. “My brother Andrew’s going to apply there, I think.”

“Yeah, I’m a senior,” said Spencer, shrugging. He had soft, pearl-gray eyes that Hannah kept looking at for just a fraction of a second too long. “Bio major. It’s really tough stuff. I’ve got this huge thesis to turn in for April. I’m going to be a doctor.”

“Don’t you have to study for like, a million years for that?” said Hannah, who had heard a few things from David and Rose.

“Ten million,” said Spencer. “But I’m up for it.” He eyed the drinks table at the other end of the room. “You guys want me to get you some champagne?”

“God, yes,” said Jordyn, his twin sister. “Bring it on.”

“How about you, Hannah?”

Hannah hesitated, glanced over at her parents, and then looked back at Spencer, who looked like he was hiding a smile. “Yes,” she said decisively. “I would love some champagne.”

Spencer returned several minutes later with a tray, upon which an assortment of elegant-looking glasses filled with honey-colored liquid was perched. “I told them there were nine of us,” he said. “Should be enough to get us reasonably tipsy. No fun being at a wedding without a little inebriation.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Jordyn, and they clinked glasses.

Hannah took an experimental sip. The champagne was bitter, then sweet, and fizzed on her tongue more sharply than soda. Swallowing it sent a brief chill behind her nose. She winced in spite of herself. Sometimes she still forgot how much more strongly tastes hit her than other people.

Spencer frowned. “You good?”

“It’s delicious,” said Hannah.

They handed her a second glass before she even asked. After a few more minutes, her head felt pleasantly light, and she found that her feet were tapping out an enthusiastic rhythm under the table. She didn’t feel intimidated by Spencer and Jordyn anymore. They were just a couple of students, after all; hardly older than Andrew and Tom.

The conversation turned to gossip about the other guests. Hannah discovered that Spencer and Jordyn were actually Daniel’s second cousins. They didn’t see him all that often and seemed to have attended the wedding mostly for the free party. They liked Aunt Marissa, though, which made Hannah like them more.

“She seems like she’ll be good for him,” said Spencer. “If I remember right, Daniel could be a bit of a tight-ass sometimes. Got all in my face for spraying him with the garden hose when I was a kid. Granted, it _was_ December, but still.”

“That wasn’t Daniel,” said Jordyn derisively. “That was Darren. Daniel’s brother.” For Hannah’s benefit, she pointed to a man at the next table, who was wearing an unspeakably ugly tie. “We shrink-wrapped his toilet once when we were younger. _That_ ended well.”

“I’ll avoid talking to him,” Hannah promised. She took another long swig and made a mental note not to mention shrink-wrapping toilets to Tom. “Who else should I know about?”

“Great-Aunt Carla,” said Spencer, and Hannah followed his finger to where a glum-faced woman with a puff of white hair was gnawing on a chicken wing. “Monster with the body of a batshit old lady. She’s scandalized by _everything_.”

“Especially me,” said Jordyn, happily flicking a strand of her trendy lime-green haircut. “She wanted to send me to cotillion. I’m a huge disappointment.”

“She is,” Spencer confirmed. “Always has been.”

Jordyn scoffed and elbowed him in the chest. “How about you, though, Hannah? Your side of the family’s pretty crazy, right?”

“Not really,” said Hannah, rubbing the side of her head. The corners of the room had begun to shift back and forth; it was a strange feeling, but not altogether bad. She took another sip of champagne. “I mean, I can’t think of anyone.”

“Come on,” teased Jordyn. “No family scandals? No dark secrets? No elephants in the room?”

“I don’t think one would fit,” said Hannah doubtfully. “Our house isn’t _that_ big.”

Spencer snorted. “What about that werewolf kid, though? You must know her, right?”

Hannah’s heartbeat seemed to falter. She decided she couldn’t possibly have heard him right.

“Um, what?”

“Yeah,” said Spencer. His voice had started to slur a little, but he was still beaming. “My dad was talking about it a while ago. Marissa has a niece or something who’s – I’m not even kidding – a real werewolf. A Type _Three_ werewolf. The _really_ fucked up kind, you know? The kind that will basically eat your face off if it isn’t sedated. She’s supposed to be only twelve or something. I mean, how messed up is that?”

Jordyn was laughing; Hannah wasn’t sure why. She pressed her lips together and tried to figure out what to do. The problem was that her brain seemed to be moving much more slowly than usual, and the swift current of anger burbling beneath it seemed to be moving much faster. She ended up taking a third glass of champagne and staring at Spencer with her eyebrows knitted.

“Very messed up,” she said quietly. “Very, very, very messed up.”

“I’d have lost my _shit_ if I were her,” said Jordyn. “Like, I can’t believe that something like that can even _happen_ to someone. You’re just, I don’t know, doing your thing, being a kid, and then suddenly you want to _eat people_ , just because the moon comes up? Actually, what does the moon even have to do with it? I mean, what the heck?”

“It’s because werewolves are deathly allergic to cheese,” said Spencer seriously. “Didn’t you know? They have to watch the giant cheese ball in the sky get bigger and bigger every day, and when it finally gets as big as it’s going to get, they just… _lose it_.” He threw back his head and howled. Jordyn laughed so hard she almost fell under the table.

It wasn’t even a good joke. Hannah had made thousands of werewolf jokes that were better than that.

Spencer turned and looked at her with a sparkle in his eye, as if awaiting congratulations. Hannah didn’t give it. She was fighting with her brain, trying to coax it into respond in a way that would be appropriate for the situation, but something was wrong; it was as though she couldn’t remember what appropriate _was_. It was as though part of her had become molasses and the other part pure, unadulterated fury, seeping out of her at a sly but determined pace she wasn’t able to keep up with.

She didn’t remember making the decision to do it. She watched her hand wrap around the stem of her half-empty champagne glass and rise, as if attached by an invisible string. Then the string jerked her hand sharply backwards – raised the glass over her head – flung her arm forward – and emptied every last drop of champagne into Spencer’s face.

He stared at her, coughing and sputtering. Jordyn’s face had frozen. She put one arm protectively around her brother.

“I don’t think you’re cute anymore,” Hannah heard herself hiss. “I don’t even think you’re _cool_ anymore. I think you’re a – I think you’re a –” She fought to find a word that was bad enough, but her head felt too foggy, so she grabbed at the first one that came to her. “I think you’re a _scoundrel._ And I know only pirates say that, but I don’t care.”

Her legs pushed her upward and she stumbled out of her chair, taking no notice of the people around her, who seemed to be murmuring to each other. Darren, from the next table, thrust his own glass of champagne away, looking horrified.

“Spence, how many has she _had?_ ” Jordyn whispered. “This isn’t even that strong.”

Hannah didn’t wait to hear his response. She moved tremulously toward the dance floor, which was now filled with couples – somehow, incredibly, she’d missed Aunt Marissa and Daniel’s first dance. But that didn’t matter now.

She needed to find Tom. He’d been drunk before – he’d understand what was happening to her – and maybe he could help her give Spencer what was coming to him, too. She plodded on, bumping into an assortment of dancing people in heels who scowled at her as she passed. It took another minute of searching before she spotted Tom at a table in the corner, sitting with his feet propped up, as far from the dance floor as humanly possible.

“TOM!” she shouted over the music, but he didn’t hear her, so she scurried backwards, smashing into even more people this time. The floor swayed dangerously and threatened to hit her in the forehead. Hannah jumped nimbly out of its reach, forced her legs to lift, and finally – _finally_ – ended up just a few yards away from her brother.

She saw Tom notice her, and she grinned at him, wondering why his eyes looked so concerned. He said something, though she couldn’t tell what, and then leapt up, making his way toward her at a run and then a sprint.

“I think I’m going to fall over, Tom,” said Hannah, looking cheerily up at him. “It’s like the floor is a shark that wants to eat me up. But a friendly shark. It doesn’t have any teeth.”

“Put her on the ground,” said a firm, urgent voice that didn’t belong to her brother. “Careful with her head. That’s it – nice and gentle. She’ll be fine – she just needs some rest and a _lot_ of water. And don’t let her sleep for a while.”

“God, Han,” said Tom, taking her hand. “You go hard, don’t you?”

“You need to punch him, Tom,” she said faintly. “Punch him really hard. He deserves it.”

“Punch who?”

“She’s blathering,” said another stranger. Hannah caught a flash of white – Great-Aunt Carla had come to watch the scandal. “She’s made her bed and she can lie in it, I say.”

“I don’t think it was her fault,” said the first voice. “If she’s lycanthropic, like you say – well, alcohol affects them more strongly than most people. Still, she should have been warned about that. Good lesson for next time, I guess.”

“She shouldn’t have been drinking anything at all,” said a fourth voice, and this one Hannah did recognize.

She forced herself to open her eyes. Her mother stood over her, her expression taut, her lips pursed. If she had only been angry, Hannah wouldn’t have minded so much. But there was more than anger there, and it wasn’t that odd look from the morning either. Hannah was too woozy to identify what she was missing. She closed her eyes again.

“I’m not a pirate anymore,” she whispered. And then they made her rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never give a werewolf champagne. Don't do it.
> 
> I wrote Hannah's reaction as a subversion of the many stories I've seen in which werewolves have little or no reaction to alcohol (enabling them to casually sit back and judge their drunken friends!) Turns out -- in this world, at least -- it's quite the opposite.


	15. Lervis

Being hungover was almost worse than being grounded.

“I can give you some ibuprofen and water, but that’s about it,” said Aunt Celeste. “You’ll have to wait it out best you can. I’d be willing to bet you’re not the only guest feeling like this today.”

Hannah groaned and swallowed the pills that Aunt Celeste handed her. She couldn’t imagine anyone in the world, let alone the other guests, feeling sicker than she was. Full moons she was used to. This was different.

While both of her parents seemed to understand that Hannah hadn’t _meant_ to get drunk, they still weren’t happy that she’d accepted Spencer’s offer of alcohol, and they had banned her from family outings for several days. She also had to write a letter of apology to Aunt Marissa and Daniel, which was the part of her punishment that made her most uncomfortable.

Having spent most of the night huddled over Aunt Celeste’s toilet, Hannah missed saying goodbye to her aunt before she left for her honeymoon. She felt wracked with guilt. Aunt Marissa must have seen what had happened – _everyone_ had seen, even Moe (as he kept excitedly telling Hannah). Was Aunt Marissa furious? Was she asking herself why she had put so much time and energy into a niece who clearly cared only about herself?

She managed to scribble out an uneasy letter to Aunt Marissa, filled with _I’m so incredibly sorry_ s and _I didn’t mean for it to happen_ s. She sealed the envelope and stared out the window as memories of the last few days flashed through her head.

Aunt Celeste. _I don’t think it’s really my place to say, Hannah…_

Jordyn. _I can’t believe that something like that can even_ happen _to someone…_

Spencer. _A Type Three… the kind that will basically eat your face off if it isn’t sedated…_

And – looming blackly above everything else – there was the description of Lervis she’d seen online. _A danger to the community,_ it had said… that was what those nurses had thought of her…

They’d lied to her; they’d locked her up. She supposed Dr. Trapp had only brought her back to the hospital because she’d just been bitten, because he couldn’t be positive she was a Type Three yet. And then, when he was – when he was –

He’d _tried_ to take her; that much was clear. And her parents had said no. They’d refused to give her up; they’d been willing to break the law for her; they’d moved to Curnow rather than let Hannah grow up away from people who loved her. They’d rushed her out of the hospital. They’d uprooted the entire family.

They hadn’t told her a thing about it.

Hannah finally had enough energy to slam her fists into her pillow, and she did, again and again, until her breath came in shaky gasps and the sides of her hands tingled. She had to _do_ something, she thought. She couldn’t keep all of – all of _this_ trapped inside her head – burning and smoking and scraping and scratching – desperately trying to force its way out until one day it did, and Hannah lost control completely –

She was going to have to go to Lervis, she realized. Before she left Wisconsin. If she didn’t, she’d be at the mercy of other people’s secrets for – for who knew how long. It wouldn’t end until she made it end. There would be more; there would always be more; and it would catch her off guard and do things to her, the way Rory’s class had done things to her.

 _Lervis’ records cover much more information than is available to the public at large, including identity of infector,_ Wikipedia had said. If Hannah went to Lervis, she could find out once and for all what had happened on the night she was bitten. She’d learn who had done it, what Type they were, where they were now. And then she could shove that information away; lock it up safely; never look at it again.

There was just one thing she needed to do first. For that, she needed Tom.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, after Hannah hauled him into the tiny guest room he was reluctantly sharing with Andrew. “You’re going to ignore the fact that you’re grounded tomorrow and go out without telling Aunt Celeste or anyone else. And you’re also expecting to get back here before anybody notices or comes home.”

“That’s it.”

“You’re insane, little sister. I admire you for it, but you’re insane.”

“I need your _help,”_ said Hannah. “You told me yourself you know how to sneak out of a house without anyone finding out. You’ve been to tons of parties, and Mom and Dad only caught you once.”

“Yeah, but you’re trying to do it during the day.” Tom frowned. “Still, I guess it should be pretty much the same – in theory, anyway. I don’t know how you’re going to keep Aunt Celeste from realizing you’re gone, but other than that…”

“Look, the important part is that I get out of the house,” said Hannah. “If Mom and Dad find out, I’ll deal with it. Just tell me what I need to do.”

Tom thought for a moment. “Well, in a house like this, I think we’re looking at windows. At home, there’s this tree right outside my bedroom, and all I have to do is swing myself out, climb onto a branch, and jump down. Easiest thing in the world. Since this is a one-story house, it should be even easier. It’s just a matter of choosing the right place.”

“The bathroom window,” said Hannah. “I could lock the door. By the time Aunt Celeste figures out I’m not actually in there, I could be gone for ages.”

“Smart girl,” said Tom, grinning. “You’re taking after me more than I was starting to think.”

“Shut up.”

“Where’re you going, anyway?”

Hannah gave him a look.

Tom, correctly analyzing it, frowned again. “Really? After all I’ve done to help?”

“If you tell a single soul, you’re _dead,_ Thomas Cobham,” she said. She shoved him out of the room in exactly the same way she’d pushed him in.

***

It was simple once she had a plan. Exactly an hour to the minute after her family left for a day trip to Madison, Hannah told Aunt Celeste that she wasn’t feeling well and thought she might take a nap.

“Probably some kind of dumb flu thing,” she sighed. “I’ve always caught bugs really easily. Well, ever since… you know…”

“Oh, sweetheart,” said Aunt Celeste, touching her forehead. “No fever yet, but it could be coming. I’ll bring you some soup at lunch, all right? For now, get back to bed. Try to rest…”

“Thanks,” said Hannah, trying her best to sound weak and weary. She climbed under her covers and waited until Aunt Celeste’s footsteps faded away.

Then she went into the bathroom, triple-checked that she had locked the door, and flung open the curtains. Although the window was small and high up, and getting out of it scraped up Hannah’s arms and legs, the whole secret-escape thing really wasn’t as difficult as people made it out to be. She landed with a soft thump on the grass behind the house, where Aunt Celeste was unlikely to catch a glimpse of her.

There weren’t any buses that went to Lervis, so Hannah had accepted that she’d have to spend most of her Christmas money on a taxi. She meandered out of Aunt Celeste’s neighborhood and headed to the Argent Hotel, a fancy Grecian-looking building she’d noticed a few days earlier. There were several cabs waiting outside. She sauntered over and tried to look as though she was the sort of person who might be staying there.

“Hey,” she said to the first taxi driver she saw, who was half-dozing in his seat. “D’you think you could take me to Lervis?”

He jerked upright. “Say what?”

“Lervis,” said Hannah. “It’s a town kind of close to here? I want to go to the lycanthropy center. It’s for a very important thesis I’m working on with my friend Spencer.”

“You talking about that place for werewolves?”

“It’s for a _thesis_ ,” Hannah repeated, and hoped she looked convincing.

“You college kids are just getting younger and younger these days,” muttered the driver. “Well. I don’t think I ever took anyone there before, but I know where it is. Big old eyesore right along the highway. Hop in.”

Hannah slid into the taxi, and it zoomed off down the slush-covered streets. By the time the city center was out of sight, Hannah was grinning into the rearview mirror. Despite her destination, she was buzzing with the same feeling she’d experienced with Topher – that feeling of absolute freedom, of rebellious victory. Like she could do anything she wanted and still come out okay. Her parents thought she was safe at home with Aunt Celeste; Aunt Celeste thought she was curled up in bed. The only person who knew the truth was Tom, and he would never tell. For the second time, Hannah found herself marveling at how being bad could be so unbelievably easy.

She stayed quiet in the taxi, mostly looking out the window, trying to see if she could recognize anything. She thought a hill in the distance looked vaguely familiar, and there was something about the silhouettes of the roadside birch trees…

A cold, unexpected jolt surged through her body.

She tore her gaze away. She wasn’t _going_ to Lervis to remember. She was a different person now.

“Well, here you go,” said the taxi driver, his voice doubtful.

He pulled up in front of a building, and Hannah looked up. Chills sputtered through her chest.

Concrete. Gray. Rundown and boxlike; a shuttered eye. An ugly little complex between the highway and a sparse, empty field.

_“He’s coming. Dr. Trapp. We’d better get her ready.”_

_“Get me ready for_ what _?”_

_“A treat for you. A surprise. You’ll see…”_

The driver rapped on the back of his seat, making her jump. “Hey, are you getting out? Miss?”

After arranging to be picked up again in an hour, Hannah watched him pull out of the parking lot and back out onto the highway. She tried to ignore the mad, howling instinct inside her that wanted to run after him. To beg him to take her back to Aunt Celeste’s, or even all the way back to Curnow. Anything to get as far away from this place as humanly possible.

But no. That was cowardice, plain and simple – and _stupid_ cowardice, anyway. There were things she had come here to learn. She wasn’t going to leave until she knew them.

Hannah stalked up to the building, whipped her hair into a ponytail, and put on her most intimidating expression. Then she tried to force the door open, which was a bad idea, because it turned out to be automatic. Still, she went inside with as much dignity as possible, because dignity was important.

Her first impression of Lervis’ interior was of a blast of heat. Almost everything inside the building was a livid shade of red – so bright that Hannah’s eyes watered slightly at the sight of it. She knew it couldn’t have been like that before; she’d surely have remembered. Scarlet-colored sofas were arranged around coffee tables and computer stations as though a bunch of book clubs were about to take place there, although each of the sofas was unoccupied.

A woman wearing a red uniform and dark lipstick stood at the reception desk. The nametag on her collar read _Eun_ , and Hannah realized that she was trying to get her attention.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes,” said Hannah, forcing confidence into her voice. “This is the Lervis Lycanthropy Center, isn’t it?”

“It’d be news to me if it wasn’t,” said Eun, with a half-smile. “Are you looking for something?”

“I – I’m here to get my records,” said Hannah. “The ones that tell you things that aren’t on the online database. Wikipedia says you have them. You do have them, right?”

“We do,” said Eun. If she had any additional curiosity about why Hannah was there, she didn’t show it. “You can sit down at any computer you want and look yourself up. But you should know that we also offer other resources here. We have a support group for teens that meets once a month, and just yesterday, we received a whole stack of pamphlets published by the Wisconsin Lycanthropy Association. A number of people have already found them helpful.”

Hannah shuddered, but managed to keep smiling. “Just the records, please.”

“Sure,” said Eun. “Let me know if you need anything else. But try to stay in this area, okay? The residents… they get upset sometimes when they see a strange face, so we ask new visitors to keep to the lobby.”

Residents? Hannah knew there had been something in the Wikipedia article about people who had decided not to leave Lervis. But why on earth would anyone want to stay here? She almost asked Eun, but she told herself there was no point in wasting any more time. She headed to the computer furthest from Eun’s desk, in a shadowy corner by the door.

The database was already on the screen when she sat down. _Search Lervis’ Historical Records, 1918-2011,_ said the website, in curly font on a silver background. And beneath that, in smaller letters: _Search Lervis’ Current Resident Registry._

Hannah tipped herself onto a red armchair, clicked on the first link, and cautiously typed her name into the fields below. The computer made some thoughtful grinding noises, completed its search, and presented her with a screen that was very like the one she’d seen in Rory’s class. But there were a few key differences.

Instead of the section that listed the various aspects of Hannah’s condition – lycanthropic episodes, places of transformation, and travel permission – there was a little box with a red border on it, listing two dates from almost eight years before.

Those, Hannah thought, had to be her first two transformations – the ones she had spent here at Lervis. She scrolled further down the page. _Resident has been transported to the State of Virginia_ , it said. _Resident is now subject to its regulations and laws and is no longer the responsibility of the State of Wisconsin._

Then her attention was drawn to the last item on the list. Beside the date and location where she’d been bitten, there was a third field that certainly hadn’t been on the database she’d seen in Rory’s class. There, plain as day – sitting there demurely as though it couldn’t possibly mean very much to anyone—was the category _Name of Infector_. Written next to it were the words _Srebrenka Vukoja._

Hannah looked at it for a long time. Her mind felt curiously blank. After a while – maybe minutes, maybe seconds; Hannah wasn’t sure – she realized that the name was hyperlinked. It seemed like a good idea to click on it. She did.  
  


_Name: Vukoja, Srebrenka Elena_

_Sex: F_

_Date of Birth: April 11, 1963_

_Location of Birth: Osijek, Croatia (moved to Fond du Lac, WI, 1967; became American citizen 1973)_

_Date of Bite: April 15, 1974_

_Type: 3  
  
  
_It was a woman who had bitten her. On the rare occasions that Hannah thought about her attacker, she had always assumed it had been a man. He would be someone clinically insane; out of control; someone with a feral, dangerous look in his eyes. She had imagined him in jail, rattling at the bars, screaming at the walls. She had imagined that he wasn’t a person at all.

She didn’t want to imagine this Srebrenka person. This woman who had moved to a new country when she was only four; who had been bitten when she was only eleven; who must have been locked up here at Lervis just afterward, by the very nation that had just become her home. What could that have been like? Had she been afraid?

It didn’t _matter_ , Hannah reminded herself. This person, this Srebrenka – she was a _criminal_. A fifty-one-year-old criminal who had changed an eight-year-old girl’s life irrevocably; who deserved to be defined by that for the rest of her life. Whose name Hannah couldn’t begin to decide how to pronounce.

Despite herself, she got out her phone and looked it up. It seemed to be Croatian, like one of her favorite teachers at Trevarthen. Her lips followed the online pronunciation guide, though she made sure not to say the name out loud. She didn't need Eun coming over to find out what she was doing.

Hannah read on. There was no record of the person who had bitten Srebrenka. And in the small red box that had listed the dates Hannah had spent at Lervis, no full moons had been recorded at all. Instead, there was a brief summary:

_Vukoja’s doctor registered her as a Type Two at the time of her bite. Later developments revealed that he had concealed the truth so that she could remain at home with her family. Vukoja’s true Type was discovered after the attack of an eight-year-old girl in June 2007, after which time she was imprisoned for four years. A judge then consented to her release on good behavior after the FDA’s approval of the Moon Pill. Vukoja never spent any time at the Lervis Lycanthropy Center._

She _hadn’t_ been locked up, then. There had been people to help her avoid it. So that she could stay with her family.

Something darkened inside Hannah’s head. She turned back to the screen.

Directly under that last paragraph she had read, there was a note identical to the one on Hannah’s page. It was dated two years previously.

_Resident has been transported to the State of Virginia. Resident is now subject to its regulations and laws and is no longer the responsibility of the State of Wisconsin._  
  


Hannah got up and walked as quickly as she could to the opposite end of the room, to the clusters of sofas that lacked computers completely and only had stacks of magazines on the tables.

This didn’t make sense. It didn’t make _sense_. Why on earth would Srebrenka have chosen to go to Virginia after being released from prison, when she could have gone anywhere else in the whole country? Had she gone to Curnow? Had she talked to Rose and David? Had she known that Hannah lived there, too?

She tried to force herself to be rational. Plenty of people moved to Virginia every day. It was a big state. Srebrenka probably hadn’t moved so she could _follow_ her. Maybe she had relatives there who had taken her in.

Hannah thought about texting Harry, but decided against it almost immediately. She was sure he was having a wonderful winter break with Seb. The last thing he needed was Hannah texting him all kinds of stupid werewolf stuff, weeks out from the next full moon. Hannah knew she’d resent it if she were in Harry’s place.

Then she thought of Topher, who didn’t do what you were supposed to do when the full moon was still far away enough to ignore. Even if he didn’t angst out loud very much anymore, he still _thought_ about it, Hannah knew; she yelled at him for it sometimes. (“Thoughts are free,” Topher always responded, giving her one of his signature furrowy-eyebrow looks. “Go invade somebody else’s brain.”)

Maybe he’d enjoy a little angst-fest. Or at least a piece of one – Hannah wasn’t prepared to give him _too_ much; that would only prolong his habit of wallowing all the time. But at least she could shift some of what she’d just learned away from herself. To someone who could carry it around in his phone. So that she wouldn’t have to carry it around in her head.

 _Topher_ , she typed. _I just found out who bit me. I don’t like it. Because it doesn’t make any sense and she might even be living in Curnow and WHAT IF SHE’S STALKING ME? And my parents knew about her for years and years and didn’t tell me, because they never tell me anything. Oh, and I’m grounded because I got drunk. Did you know werewolves can’t have champagne?_

No. She definitely couldn’t send that. She deleted everything except the first few lines.

_Topher. I just found out who bit me. I don’t like it._

She sent it and shoved her phone back into her pocket. Even if it buzzed, she wouldn’t look at it until she got back to Aunt Celeste’s.

A noise from behind her made her jump. There were voices outside the door. Eun, who until then had been busy at her computer, leapt up and jogged over to Hannah.

“The residents,” she said, slightly breathlessly. “They’re back a little early. Just stay where you are and don’t say anything to them, okay?”

Hannah couldn’t stop herself from asking. “What do you mean? Why do people even still live here, if they’ve changed the laws?”

Eun looked uncomfortable. “There were a few residents who… well, who weren’t fit to leave, to put it bluntly. When you’ve lived here for thirty, forty, fifty, even sixty years… you tend to get used to it.”

“Used to it,” Hannah repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Well. They never had the chance to get out very much. I mean, I think the facilitators took them outside _sometimes_. There’s that field across the street, and they told us they used to play games… but the law said that they had to stay here, and they didn’t get much human interaction, even with each other. And people… psychologically, you know, people can’t be neglected for that long and not have it affect their development. They were – mistreated, under the old laws. They’re not… normal adults. They wouldn’t be able to live by themselves.”

“So they live here,” said Hannah carefully.

“I know. I know it’s awful. But there are only about thirty of them, and the old facilitators are gone. We try to give them as normal a life as we can. Lola and Rolf took a group of them to the zoo this morning. It’s much better than it used to be.”

Before Hannah could respond, the door opened, and a cluster of people made their way inside. A woman with brown pigtails and a man wearing a sweater vest were speaking in calm, soothing tones to the people around them, who all seemed to be upwards of forty.

“That’s it, Winnie. Time to rest. You can take a nap now, and you’ll be all set for dinner in a few hours. Winnie didn’t like the lions,” the pigtailed woman explained to Eun. “None of them liked the lions very much, actually. I’m not sure we’ll be doing the zoo again.”

Winnie glared at the pigtailed woman.

“I wanted to see the timber wolves,” grinned an elderly man who looked to Hannah as though he was completely toothless. “But Lola and Rolf said we couldn’t. They said it would _upset_ the _others_.”

And it did upset them, even there. The mere mention of the word “wolves” sent five of the six into hysteria, screaming and shouting and smacking their arms into the old man’s face. One of the younger men grabbed an issue of _Field & Stream_ off one of the tables and started hitting the old man around the ears with it.

“Mark!” Lola cried. “No, Mark, no matter how upset you feel, we can’t let you do that. _No,_ Anthony, you can’t hit Boris, either –”

It was only then, as Lola and Rolf ushered six of Lervis’ resident werewolves into the labyrinthine corridors behind the lobby, that Hannah noticed the shadows above their heads.

Eidolons. Each of the werewolves had eidolons – every single one of them. And it was eidolons in the plural this time – not just a single shadow tracking their movements from above, like Hannah had seen with her mother. These were… these were entire _clusters,_ clumped together like thunderclouds in miniature. She couldn’t even count how many there were.

Hannah watched, transfixed, as the werewolves disappeared through the door, their eidolons gliding gracefully behind them. The door slammed, and Hannah and Eun were alone again.

Eun must have noticed the expression on her face, because she turned to Hannah and said, “It isn’t their fault. You can’t imagine the kind of lives they’ve had. They can’t help it.”

Hannah nodded and tried to think of something normal to respond with. What ended up coming out of her mouth was, “They probably could help it if they tried hard enough.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Eun, looking puzzled, but Hannah was already on her way across the room, toward the door, toward escape.

She darted away from the building and into the parking lot, where she took several deep breaths, because she was certain that the air in that place hadn’t been normal. For a second, she thought she felt better. Then she realized that she wasn’t alone.

One of the eidolons had followed her outside.

Hannah looked up at it, at the gentle way its dark, rippling wisps wafted above her head. She fought to remember what Candice and Warren had told her class about eidolons, several years before. Eidolons were attracted to one thing and one thing only… worry, hadn’t they said? But Hannah _wasn’t_ worrying about anything, unless you counted the stupid idea that Srebrenka might have followed her to Curnow, which was ridiculous – Hannah _knew_ it was ridiculous. So it should be easy to make the eidolon go away.

She scowled at it. “I have to get home,” she said. “And you’re not allowed to follow me there.”

As if in reply, it drifted a few feet away from her. For a moment, it hesitated. Then it swept back through the sliding door, toward the werewolf it had come from.

When the taxi came to pick Hannah up, she remembered her text to Topher. She pulled out her phone.

_Topher. I just found out who bit me. I don’t like it._

And he had replied. Sarcastically, of course, because that was Topher, but he’d replied, and that was good.

_Did Hannah Cobham just text me something serious? The apocalypse is clearly nigh. Anyway. I don’t think you’re supposed to like it. Do you?_

She was too tired to think about how to respond, so she just wrote _I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later._

She knew he was probably dying of curiosity, and that he’d bring it up the next time they met, and that _she’d_ have to figure out some clever way of wriggling out of that conversation – but that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that she knew about Srebrenka Vukoja, and she knew what had happened at Lervis, and she knew everything her parents had been keeping from her.

And that meant that she was allowed to forget about it. Permanently, with any luck.

She told the taxi to park outside the Argent Hotel, and then she ran back to Aunt Celeste’s house, where she snuck inside with only a little more effort than it had taken to get out. Then she crawled into bed.

Ten minutes later, Aunt Celeste arrived with an enormous bowl of chicken noodle soup. She put it on the night table and felt Hannah’s forehead. “Do you feel any better, sweetie?” she said.

“No,” said Hannah. She didn’t feel like leaving her bed again for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the kid gets sneakier. As we all knew she would.
> 
> Did anyone realize "Lervis" is just a bad anagram of the word "silver"? (I probably shouldn't go around telling people this.) There are far too many little werewolf jokes in this book. I've thought of editing some of them out, now that I've got a few years' perspective, but... I haven't, and I likely won't.


	16. Lone Wolf

School felt different after Wisconsin. It had never felt especially important before, but now Hannah couldn’t see the point at all. Her grades dropped and she didn’t do much to pick them back up. Her father sat her down at the dining room table and put on his scariest face.

“There are people out there – more people than you know, Hannah, because you’ve been sheltered – who won’t hire someone with lycanthropy unless they have a damn good reason to, and maybe not at all. If your grades are poor – if your grades are even _mediocre_ – you’re limiting your options so much more than you can imagine. In a few years you’ll be going off to college, and –”

“I have _not_ been sheltered!” Hannah slammed her fist on the table, which made the whole dining room quiver in a satisfying way. “I’ve met them! Remember Dr. Trapp? Remember those nurses?”

“Dr. Trapp and the nurses were medical workers,” said her father. “That’s different. There are people in _every_ part of life who are ignorant and prejudiced and just plain wrong. Those people have power, and it’s dangerous to assume their power won’t affect you. Stubbornness is not going to earn you a paycheck.”

“I don’t care if I starve,” said Hannah. “It’s not right to do stuff just so you can survive if that stuff is wrong and stupid.”

“ _Surviving_ isn’t wrong and stupid. I don’t want you to find that out the hard way. Your grades need to go up. And if they don’t, I’ll just have to keep you grounded until they do.”

This was a much more serious punishment than before, because by this time, almost all of Hannah’s friends had learned to drive. Hannah herself was still on a waiting list for lessons, but the promise of a few hours of freedom in Ella or Topher’s car was something she did not want ruined by her parents. She didn’t have to stay in boring old Curnow anymore. She could turn the radio up and slide down the windows, singing and screaming as the wind whipped through her hair.

So Hannah reluctantly forced her brain to complete assignments that seemed even more boring and useless than before, and her grades improved. But she feigned deafness any time her father tried to compliment her on her progress. She wasn’t about to let her father think she _believed_ what he had told her.

***

In the end, Hannah did end up telling Harry and Topher what had happened at Lervis, but only because Topher gave her no choice.

The day after she got back – a long day that consisted of Hannah changing the subject every time someone brought up her trip to Wisconsin – Topher cornered her in the science hallway before lunch. He had an infuriatingly determined look on his face.

“Something happened,” he said. “You said you found out who bit you. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I think you _should_ talk about it. Because I’m your friend, and – and that’s what friends do. They listen to each other.” He paused. “You listened to me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Hannah crossly. “I want to forget about it. And you should let me.”

“But – but – take a minute to imagine it, Hannah. You could _find_ them now, if you wanted to. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard. You could track them down, tell them what you know, make them apologize –”

“That’s you, not me,” said Hannah, but her words came out more coldly than she meant them to, and Topher’s gaze flickered away from her.

She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll tell you and Harry, too. But _after_ school, okay? I don’t want to think about werewolf criminals while I’m eating. It’ll make me sick.”

This gave her time to think about how she wanted to frame the story. She was definitely going to leave out the things Spencer and Jordyn had said, and she didn’t want to talk about the Lervis residents or their eidolons. And she would only mention her childhood transformations in passing. There were things, she felt, that her friends had no business knowing.

They ended up on the squashy couches in Harry’s basement, where the three of them were least likely to be disturbed. Still, Hannah didn’t like it when both Harry and Topher’s eyes turned directly to her, and Topher said, “Well?” It made her feel like she was about to be interviewed for a job she did not want at all.

She launched into her story and made it as funny as she could, because that was the best way to keep them from feeling sorry for her. She turned Aunt Celeste into a caricature, a ludicrous woman who never did anything but gossip, and who had let the crucial information about Lervis slip at precisely the wrong moment. Eun the receptionist developed a voice that resembled Alvin the Chipmunk’s, while Hannah’s own escapades grew to include a drunken toast to Aunt Marissa that had ended in a snotty mess of tears. Her escape out the bathroom window was her favorite part. She threw in some rabid dogs and a nosy neighbor, just to keep things interesting.

She left in everything she had learned from the Lervis database. When she got to the part about Srebrenka having moved to Virginia, Topher sat up straight.

“She _what_?” he said, staring at her. “She’s _here?_ She followed you?”

“It didn’t say _where_ in Virginia,” said Hannah, suddenly feeling defensive. “She could be anywhere. But she obviously knows she bit me. I mean, she got put in jail for it. So she probably could have figured out that I’d moved. If she looked at the same records that I did, anyway.”

“Your records didn’t say anything about being in Curnow specifically, did they?” said Harry, looking concerned.

“No,” said Hannah, thinking back. “But it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? I don’t think it would have been that hard for her to guess.”

“No,” said Topher. “No, it wouldn’t have been… But Han, it doesn’t make any _sense_. Why would she want to follow you? You’d think she’d want to stay as far away from you as possible, wouldn’t you? After jail, and everything?”

“We don’t have any proof that she _is_ following me. That’s kind of a big leap to make, Topher.”

It was funny – the fact that her friends thought there was a chance Srebrenka _had_ come to Virginia to follow her now made Hannah feel that she had been wrong. Curnow was a very small place. Surely if Srebrenka had been living here, Hannah would have encountered her at some point. At the hospital, if nowhere else.

Unless she was hiding out someplace, of course.

Her train of thought was broken by Harry, who had an odd expression on his face.

“What you just told us,” he said. “That’s… an awful lot to go through in just a couple of weeks. And so I just wanted to ask…. are you still – you know – doing okay?”

Hannah looked at him, perplexed. He seemed to be serious. She could not believe that he was serious. He’d known her for years – she _knew_ that she was okay. That she was always okay.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she said, when he still hadn’t stopped to laugh at his own ridiculousness. “What does ‘okay’ even _mean_ , anyway? It doesn’t actually mean anything; not if you think about it. And what are you supposed to do if the person says no? It’s kind of –” Hannah fought to remember a word she had heard Topher use a few times. “– um, sanctimonious, isn’t it? It’s a stupid question.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” said Harry.

Hannah immediately felt guilty. He was her best friend – or at least, he usually was.

“Look, Harry, I’m sorry –”

“Don’t be. I get what you were trying to say. I just think that when people say ‘are you okay’, it means… something important. Something we don’t really have words for. It’s a way of asking if there’s anything you want to talk about. If you need anything. Or if you just want to go get ice cream later. It’s how we show that we care.”

Hannah shook her head to try to clear it, but it didn’t work very well. “You wouldn’t _say_ that if you didn’t think there was something wrong with me.”

“I don’t know, Han,” said Harry. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m not always okay, either. I mean, sometimes I wonder if Seb – if Seb would rather be with someone normal. Or if he’s only with me in the first place because he thinks the whole werewolf thing is interesting. Or because he feels sorry for me.” He paused. “Everyone has problems.”

Hannah didn’t say anything in reply. She didn’t have problems, and Harry should know that he didn’t, either. Seb liked Harry because Harry was wonderful; anyone could see that. She drummed her fingers on the side of the sofa, looking away, wondering how it was that thoughts like that could take root in Harry’s head, and grow, and fester. Wondering how much longer she’d have to subject herself to this interrogation.

Topher glanced at Hannah and then got up abruptly, grabbing several video game controllers off the floor in the process.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat. “Is anybody up for saving Princess Peach tonight, or am I going to have to do it alone?”

“Princess Peach doesn’t need to be saved,” said Hannah gratefully, cuffing him on the shoulder. “She’s a strong independent woman. She can save _herself_.”

She took a controller anyway.

***

Tom and Andrew left for college that August. After great struggle on Tom’s part and a nervous kind of ease on Andrew’s, they’d both gotten into and selected the places where they would spend the next four years of their education. Hannah went dorm-room shopping with them, occasionally slipping a pink clothes hanger into Tom’s stack of black ones, and trying to avoid thinking about what on earth their family would like when they were gone.

Like so many situations where change slowly becomes inevitable, Hannah felt a strange tension growing in the weeks before Tom and Andrew were due to leave. Gulliver, who was just about to start seventh grade, seemed to revert to being several years younger. Moe tried to hijack the packing process, removing crucial items at unexpected times and hiding them around the house. Hannah herself kept flashing back and forth between wanting to spend all her time around her brothers and staying in her room with the door shut, so that she could get used to the idea of missing them.

But the biggest change that Hannah noticed was in her parents. Suddenly, and without any real warning, Tom and Andrew were the center of the household, the focal point of everything. Misty-eyed, their mother scheduled two separate goodbye parties, one for each twin, and burst into tears at both of them. Her eidolon began to spend more time by her side. Their father got the lines around his eyes that only appeared in times of stress. Hannah caught him watching her older brothers silently, a kind of pain hidden behind his face.

Tom’s drop-off, at Virginia Commonwealth University in the smoggy, bustling city of Richmond, was fairly uneventful, mostly because Tom insisted that it be that way. After they’d moved him in and given him a chain of Cobham family hugs, he gave their parents a stern smile and explained that he needed to get to know the other boys in his hall. And then he marched them out, giving them each one final hug on the way.

Hannah was struck by an urge to say something to him – something important, something that _meant_ something – but there was no way to put sixteen years of Tom into words; no way that wouldn’t make her feel like an idiot. So she put on her fiercest grin and said, “See you later, loser.”

Even then, it didn’t feel quite real. It was only when they took Andrew to the College of William and Mary, in a sleepy town south of Richmond called Williamsburg, that Hannah really understood that things had changed, and changed forever.

Andrew wasn’t the pushing-people-out-of-the-room type. He had separate conversations with each of Hannah’s siblings, asking them for advice on aligning his posters, introducing them to his roommate, letting Moe jump on his new bed. Before they left, he took Hannah aside.

“You’re the oldest now,” he said. “De facto, anyway. It can be hard. Don’t let it get to you.”

“I won’t,” said Hannah. “Besides, it’s not like I’m never going to _see_ you again. You have fall break soon, right? That’s what Mom said.”

“I guess,” said Andrew, glancing at the _Game of Thrones_ calendar he’d just put on the wall. “It’s just… I don’t know. I feel like I haven’t been a very good brother to you. At least not in the last couple years. That’s all.”

Hannah considered him: the serious expression on his face, the way his hair was exactly the same color as hers, the fact that she had always found him much harder to understand than Tom.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course you have.”

“I haven’t, though. The way me and Tom kind of drifted apart… and then that made me drift apart from you too, even though I didn’t mean to… because we were always a trio, weren’t we? The three of us?”

“We still are. Even if you and Tom haven’t made up yet. And don’t tell me that you think you never will. Because you _will_. Because I said so.”

“There’s nothing to make up, Hannah. It’s not a fight anymore. It’s not like we hate each other. We’re two brothers who grew up differently, and… there’s nothing anyone can do about that.” Hannah knew Andrew was trying as hard as he could not to look sad, so she pretended for his sake that it worked. “But you’ll always be my sister. And I’m going to miss you. And I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” said Hannah firmly.

“I just wish sometimes that it had been easier. That I could’ve, you know, _clicked_ with you the way that Tom did. I always kind of felt like you two knew something that I just wasn’t getting. Maybe none of this would have happened if I had.”

“But I don’t want you to be more like Tom,” said Hannah. “I want you to be like _you_. And for everything to be like it was before.”

“Nothing ever goes back to the way it was before,” said Andrew. “I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

He gave them one final hug, and then they were in the car, heading home. Heading away from a life where Hannah had older brothers.

***

The next few full moons were some of the dullest Hannah had ever experienced. Somehow, without Tom and Andrew around, the rigidity that had been present for her first transformations at home had returned. It was as if Tom and Andrew had been two shields protecting Hannah, making full moons bearable, and without them around, that barrier was broken, and everything fell to her parents.

Without a word being said to _her_ about it, Hannah stopped getting proper full moon visits from Gulliver and Moe. Occasionally they’d come in and say hello, and sometimes they’d watch a movie with her for a while, but then their parents would come in and give them a meaningful look, and they’d run off to play computer games without her. It was as if her parents didn’t trust her anymore. Not without Tom and Andrew there to watch her.

Hannah didn’t discuss this theory with anyone – the last thing she wanted to do was to hear her parents’ soft, concerned voices telling her she was right. Instead, she began retreating into her bedroom on transformation nights. Her parents came up to check on her, did a few minutes of awkward small talk, and then let her be.

She didn’t do very much. She usually started out watching one of Aunt Marissa’s movies on her laptop, but after it was over, the wolf’s paws couldn’t manage the keyboard, and she was left in silence. She didn’t try to get anyone to fix it for her. She sat by the window on her desk chair and waited for dawn to come.

The December full moon was different. Tom and Andrew weren’t home for Christmas yet, but they would be soon, and Chloe’s annual party was rapidly approaching – there was too much to look forward to; Hannah couldn’t resign herself to a long, tedious night devoid of entertainment. So she swallowed her pride and casually asked her mother if she might be able to put a new DVD in her computer when she was finished with the old one. Her mother looked surprisingly pleased at this request and agreed.

And Hannah felt content, almost, even after she’d been evicted from her human body and forced into the wolf’s, even after her body quaked and her limbs reshaped themselves and every part of her shook with pain. It would be over soon; there were good things to come; the furthest thing from the full moon was the full moon itself. Her Bogart and Bacall box set was sitting by her computer, and she’d started _The Big Sleep_ the second she’d felt her bones start to burn. For two hours at least, she would be distracted and happy. Or, at least, happy enough.

The movie was good. She’d seen it at least ten times before, but it was easy to lose herself in, and that was all that mattered. She twined the wolf’s tail around her body and sat splayed on the floor until the scene where Bob Steele’s character is shot by Humphrey Bogart’s. That was when she became aware that something wasn’t right.

The pads of her feet had started to prickle. A distinctly familiar numbness had begun to creep up the wolf’s hind legs.

Hannah leapt up. It was _impossible_ – it _couldn’t_ happen – they’d changed her dosage. She wasn’t stressed; she hadn’t gotten any taller in at least a year; everyone had agreed at her last appointment that she was out of the woods now, that everything was working the way it should be, that there was no _chance_ of it happening again –

The numbness spread. It had reached the wolf’s front legs now; Hannah took a panic-stricken glance her bedroom door, standing slightly ajar. She ran toward it – slammed it shut with a numb, desperate bump of the wolf’s nose –

Her head spun. The numbness enveloped her.

***

When Hannah came to, the wolf’s face was plastered against the window.

By the way it smarted, she thought the wolf must have been trying to bash its way out. Thankfully, none of the glass had broken.

She stood there shaking for a moment, not daring to look at the rest of the room, grasping at every human thought in her head and trying to hold them, to reassure herself that they would stay there. She stayed like that with her eyes closed until she was sure she could feel every last nerve in her body.

 _First things first_ , she thought. She was standing on her radiator. That made sense; the wolf wouldn’t have been able to reach the window from the floor. Everything ached – the wolf’s nose and legs most of all – but not so badly that Hannah couldn’t get down. She moved gingerly onto the floor and surveyed the room with burgeoning relief. It wasn’t perfect, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as it had been last time.

The wolf’s priority had clearly been the window. It must have gone almost straight for it this time, rather than trying to tear through the carpet, as it had in Tom and Andrew’s room. It had done a number on Hannah’s trash can – garbage was scattered across the floor like fallen apples – but the rug was intact, and her laptop had miraculously been left alone. A T-shirt she had left on the floor had been shredded, and a small chunk of paint had been scraped off one wall, but the room looked more or less okay.

She really could make it so that it looked like nothing had happened this time.

She set to work on that immediately. Judging by the scene she had lost consciousness on, only about five minutes had elapsed, but Hannah felt the way she did when she had the flu, after waking up from a feverish, unrestful sleep. She kept shivering as she propped the trash can back up with her nose and hid the ruined shirt under her bed. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real.

When she had finished, she curled up again on the carpet, the way she had before, but the wolf’s tail kept flicking back and forth, the way her fingers would sometimes start tapping on tabletops before she noticed. Concentrating on the movie was out of the question. It was almost over, and Hannah had missed a crucial scene while she’d been out. She forced herself to breathe evenly, normally – or as normally as people in wolves’ bodies ever did. She needed a plan. A good one.

She couldn’t tell her parents; that was for certain. But she couldn’t tell Rose and David, either. She couldn’t tell Harry; she couldn’t tell Topher; she couldn’t tell _anyone_. If the truth leaked out of her, it could leak out of someone else, and the whole thing would happen again. Another four weeks in the hospital. Tears and guilt from her mother. Awful conversations with her father. Doctor’s appointments twice a month. Pity from everyone who knew.

But no one would know – nobody would ever know. It was just a fluke – it _had_ to be a fluke. Rose and David had _told_ her that it wouldn’t happen again. They were experts. They knew what they were talking about.

The movie ended. Hannah started to feel calmer. After what seemed an age, her mother came in to change the DVD. Hannah stiffened and wedged herself away from her, against the wall, but nothing felt numb, and the wolf was quiet.

Everything was fine.

Except for the bruises Hannah found on her body when she changed back at dawn, it was as if it had never happened. And foundation was good at hiding bruises, and the Christmas season was still ahead of her, and Tom and Andrew were still coming home. It was only a fluke.

***

The day after Christmas, Hannah got a phone call from Topher. His voice sounded rough and strange.

“They found him,” he said. “They said they’d have told me sooner, but they were waiting to get the DNA results back, and they didn’t want to ruin my Christmas. But it wouldn’t have. I’d have been _glad_.”

“Glad about what?” said Hannah, yawning. His phone call had woken her up, but she knew Topher well enough to know that he wouldn’t call before noon if it wasn’t important. “They found who?”

“The wolf who bit me,” said Topher, in a way that was almost triumphant. “I’m finally going to meet him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Andrew (probably because I relate to him so much). In retrospect, I wish I'd given him a little more screen time.
> 
> In other news, Hannah's been featured in a web magazine over on Tapas (where this story is cross-posted). Pretty much made my entire week. Huge thank-you to @Wocalich for that. If you'd like to check it out, the link is here: tapas.io/episode/1891822
> 
> I also got a really lovely comment from @that one reader that pretty much had me beaming all yesterday evening. Feeling pretty thankful at the moment!


	17. Hannah's Shtick

It was Nicolas. Nicolas, from Hannah’s earliest days in Curnow; with the slumped shoulders and angry eyes. Who Hannah had taken such pleasure in irritating. Who had been so insistent that nothing could make her headache better. Hannah couldn’t believe it.

After Topher, he had attacked somebody else. This time, it had been a middle-aged woman from Silver Spring; she had been baking banana bread for her book group and run out to buy milk. _The Washington Post_ was full of outraged editorials. Two attacks before the culprit was caught? Something had to be done.

But something _had_ been done. Nicolas was in custody. His minimum sentence was five years, but as he had infected two people, it was likely that he would be locked up for much longer.

Topher couldn’t stop talking about it.

“They won’t let me speak to him until after his court date is set. His lawyer’s orders, apparently. Why does his lawyer have that much power? Having this conversation is my _prerogative_ , as his victim. It’s despicable.”

“It’ll give you time to think about it, though,” said Hannah, who, despite herself, couldn’t stop thinking about it either. “You can decide what to ask him. Come up with a list of questions. Stuff that’ll really scare him.”

“I don’t want to scare him – I want to make him _sorry,_ ” said Topher savagely. “I want to make him cry and scream and beg for forgiveness. I want facing me to be – to be worse than jail, Hannah; worse than anything he could imagine. I want to make him tremble when he meets my eyes.”

Hannah tried to imagine that, but she couldn’t. Though she hadn’t seen Nicolas in five years, she couldn’t picture him weeping with repentance. He had always just sort of _sat_ there. She didn’t say this to Topher, though. She wanted him to be right, if only for his sake.

***

Spring arrived. The bitter Virginia winter became warm and breezy; daffodils sprang up all across Trevarthen’s campus. As the seasons changed, a different kind of change seemed to fall over Hannah’s eleventh grade class. Suddenly, almost everyone Hannah knew had started to drink.

It began with a furtive get-together at Ira’s house, but by the end of April, alcohol had irrevocably infiltrated their social lives. Every few weeks, someone had a party, and before long, Hannah had mastered the art of drinking just enough to transform into a giddy ball of excited ideas and uncontrollable giggling without falling into a heap on the floor. The question of _what_ to drink was still an issue – most of her friends favored vodka, which Hannah knew she couldn’t risk without a repetition of Aunt Marissa’s wedding or worse – but after a while they started keeping a bottle of light cider on hand for her, and she was able to keep up after that.

Chloe threw a party to celebrate the end of the school year. Her parents were out of town for the weekend, and her older brother had agreed to provide drinks for Chloe and her friends. It was only bad luck that the party coincided with the week of Harry and Seb’s breakup.

Hannah hadn’t seen it coming, but in retrospect, she supposed she should have. It seemed obvious now that Harry’s worries about his relationship had been part of something bigger. He didn’t confide things like that to her very often.

“Come to the party anyway!” she said, hating how forlorn he looked. “Just forget about it for a few hours! There’ll be dancing, and music – oh, and Chloe says her brother has this really attractive friend who’s coming, and he’s gay, too –”

“I don’t want to be set up,” said Harry. “I want to be left alone.”

“ _Nobody_ wants to be left alone,” said Hannah, because if there was one thing she knew, it was this. “You’re going if I have to drag you there. You’ll thank me later. I promise.”

And he agreed, although Hannah knew that it was really only to keep her from nagging him every spare minute until he said yes.

Hannah, Harry, Topher, and Ella all arrived together. Chloe lived in an enormous, Edwardian-style house with mullioned windows and a real tower that stretched up beyond the chimney. She and her brother Joel had gone all out with the decorations: streamers in the Trevarthen school colors hung from the huge, white-columned porch, and lanterns glinted in the grass. Chloe led them to the backyard, where tables containing snacks and mixed drinks had been set up. Most of their class was already there, dancing to a trendy-sounding song Hannah hadn’t heard before.

She grinned. “This is fantastic, Chloe!”

“Isn’t it?!” said Chloe, looking smug. “Oh, and don’t worry about the drinks. I told Joel not to make the punch too strong for you. Go get something to eat! I’ll be over in the gazebo – Joel has a college friend he wants to introduce me to.”

She flounced off, leaving the four of them to attack the food table. There were more drinks than Hannah had expected. The punch bowls Chloe had mentioned had been placed front and center, but there were also bottles of hard lemonade and coconut rum.

Hannah doled out a generous portion of the punch into four Solo cups and handed them around. She took a few sips of her own, then headed eagerly onto the dance floor with Ella. Topher and Harry stayed where they were, chatting with Min and Kieran about the colleges they would be visiting over the summer.

However, when Hannah returned, sweaty and pink-faced, Kieran and Min had gone, and Topher and Harry were refilling their cups with ominous-looking expressions. Hannah didn’t have to wonder what was going on for longer than a second – Harry’s eyes were fixed on Chloe’s family’s herb garden, where Seb and Alfred Porter were sitting side by side on a bench, their fingers interlocked.

Hannah pushed through the crowd, not caring who her elbows hit, until she reached her friends. With one arm she grabbed Harry’s hand; with the other she grabbed Topher’s; and she dragged them through the back door into Chloe’s living room before either of them could protest. Then she gave Harry the tightest, warmest hug she could manage.

“It’s my fault,” he said, when he could speak. “It’s my fault, I know. I broke up with him. I told him… I told him what I’d been feeling. I thought he’d understand. About how I didn’t know if he wanted to be with me for _me_ – how I thought maybe he felt sorry for me – but I was wrong; he got mad; asked me how I could think that; and then we fought –”

“I could have told you that myself,” said Hannah fiercely. “Seb _adores_ you; any idiot can see that. He’s just being a dumbass right now. His feelings are probably hurt and so he’s trying to hurt you back. He’ll come around. And if he doesn’t – if he doesn’t, then he’s an _asshat_ , and you shouldn’t care about him anyway.”

Topher nodded. “He was always lucky to have you, Harry.”

Without really thinking about it, Hannah squeezed Topher’s hand. He squeezed back.

She looked down at the place where their hands were linked, feeling vaguely surprised. His hand was much warmer than she would have expected it to be. Topher was like that. His eyebrows were thicker, his voice was deeper, his feelings were stronger, his hands were warmer. He was a funny person.

Hannah wrenched her hand out of his. This would not do. Topher wasn’t at all the kind of person she thought of herself as liking – not in _that_ way, at least. He wasn’t anything like Jeremy Pryce, with his casual slouch and carefree smile. Topher was one of her best friends, which meant he was strange and awkward and irritating, even if other people did seem to like him more than they reasonably should.

And she could only imagine how awkward and irritating he would be if she told him what she’d just been thinking. He’d probably start trying to psychoanalyze her. It would ruin their friendship. Hannah didn’t even want to imagine it.

She shifted her attention back to Harry. He was drunk. He had now finished two of his own cups of punch and half of Topher’s, and his expression had turned dazed and unfocused. Along with his Solo cup, he had brought a small plate of brownies inside with him, and he had begun to pick out the M&Ms inside, flicking them across the plate like tiddlywinks.

“I think you should probably go home,” Hannah told him. “Aimee said she was thinking of heading back early. I bet she could drive you, since she doesn’t drink.”

“I _can’t_ ,” said Harry, with a look of desperation. He lifted a handful of M&Ms and tossed them restlessly across Chloe’s carpet. “I can’t go home. I need to go back outside, and I need to find Seb, and –”

“No,” said Hannah firmly. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Topher, could you grab Aimee from the backyard? I’ll keep an eye on Harry.”

She felt calmer the moment Topher was out of the room. Unfortunately, that was when Harry seemed to decide it was a good idea to start hitting things on Chloe’s mantelpiece with the M&Ms he had left over. Years of video games had made his hand-eye coordination unnaturally good, and it only took him a few attempts to knock several of Chloe’s father’s birthday cards to the floor. Hannah dashed over and propped them back up.

“You have to try to think about something else,” she said, gently prising the bowl away from him. “Think about summer! Think about all the stuff we’re going to do!”

“My brain doesn’t want to think about anything else,” Harry mumbled.

“Well, you have to _force it_ ,” said Hannah. “You have to tell it that it’s not the boss of you. Otherwise – otherwise you’re just going to lose it completely. And anyway, it isn’t all that different from – oh, good, Aimee, are you going to be able to take him home?”

Aimee and Topher had just walked through the door. Aimee stared at Harry as though he were some sort of bizarre hybrid creature she had stumbled across at a circus. Hannah realized that none of their group had ever seen him this intoxicated before. Harry gave her a weak wave, then toppled off the couch.

“Werewolf metabolism,” Hannah told Aimee cheerfully. “He’ll be fine after a while.”

Aimee looked as though she doubted this, but helped support him as the three of them moved Harry to her car. “If you have to throw up, you better do it out the window,” Hannah heard her telling Harry as she shut the door. “Or else my dad’ll kill me.”

Then she and Topher went back inside. To her surprise, Hannah realized that she had no desire to go out and rejoin the party. It felt disloyal to Harry to go back out into the garden and pretend everything was okay, especially if she met Seb. And she didn’t really feel like dancing anymore.

She ended up returning to the sofa and picking M&Ms out from between the cushions. Topher sat next to her. Hannah checked to make sure that none of the strange feelings from earlier had remained. She decided that none of them had.

“You did really well with Harry,” said Topher. “Way better than me.”

Hannah shrugged. “I’ve known him longer.”

“Yeah, but you were _right_ , too, you know.” Topher took a sip of the small amount of punch he had left. “If I were in Harry’s position, I’d blame myself exactly the way he’s doing. From what it sounds like, they only broke up in the first place because Harry was so paranoid. But it’s on Seb, too, isn’t it? If he really cares about Harry, they’ll eventually talk again, and they’ll work it out – and if he doesn’t, then it’s not worth it, is it?”

Hannah shook her head. “Definitely not.”

“Hannah –” Topher’s eyebrows moved into an expression that was very familiar to her: a determined, deep-set frown. “Hannah, can I ask you something? Why _did_ you send me that text? The one about finding out about who bit you, back in Wisconsin? I knew you wouldn’t want to talk about it. So why text me in the first place?”

Hannah sat in silence for a moment. She didn’t remember anymore. She knew that she’d thought it was a stupid idea at the time, but that text had been so many months ago that she had forgotten what it was that had made her do it anyway.

She shrugged. “I was just trying to torture you. Since I knew you’d be dying to know who it was.”

“It didn’t sound like it was supposed to be a funny text. All you said was that you’d found out who had bit you. And that you didn’t like it.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I was being weird. Don’t get all serious about it.”

“You weren’t being weird,” said Topher quietly. “You were being honest.”

“No, I _wasn’t_ ,” said Hannah. “I was just _thinking_ about things, that’s all. And then I stopped thinking about them. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, though,” said Topher. “Do you realize how often you do this?”

“Do what?”

“Pretend like you don’t care,” said Topher, and there was a new forcefulness to his voice now. “Pretend like it doesn’t _matter_ to you. When I first met you, I – I think I kind of believed it. That you didn’t care. And that’s why I was sort of wary of you at first. Because you didn’t seem real. Not until… I realized.”

“You didn’t think I seemed _real?_ Well, thanks, Topher. Thanks for being such a good friend.” She crossed her arms. “Not until you realized what?”

“Honestly? Because I’m not going to lie to you; I think maybe you need to hear this. I… after you’d barged into my hospital room for a few days, I started to realize that you weren’t really _like_ that. That your whole – your whole not-taking-anything-seriously shtick was just an act; that you were just trying to protect yourself; that you were trying to make the best of a really crappy situation. But… doesn’t it get old after a while? Can’t you take off the mask for five seconds and just _talk_ about it?”

Hannah scooted to the other end of the couch, so that she was sitting as far away from him as possible. She focused on her fingernails, which she had subconsciously begun clicking together in an impatient, rapid rhythm.

“Stop making stuff up,” she ended up muttering, looking away from him, at the spot on the mantelpiece where she’d replaced the fallen birthday cards. “I’m not an _act_. I’m not _in_ a crappy situation, and I don’t have a _shtick_. If you want to go looking for stuff that’s not there, then – then fine – you can do it – I won’t stop you. But if that’s the kind of person you really are – which I never thought you were, by the way – then the _last_ thing I want is to hear about it. You understand?”

She turned her head back and glared at him, hard. As she had hoped, he wilted a little under her gaze.

But he kept talking.

“That’s exactly my point.” His voice was a little strained, but he didn’t falter. “You don’t ever want to hear about things. Not if it’s stuff you don’t want to think about. You don’t want to hear about them because then you don’t have to deal with them – but that’s not how life works. You can’t make something stop existing by not talking about it. You can’t pretend you’re some kind of invincible being when _nobody’s_ invincible, when we all have problems –”

“I don’t have _problems!_ ”

Hannah didn’t realize she was shouting until Topher winced and rubbed his ears. Good, she thought. She shouted louder.

“ _You’re_ the one with problems. You’re the one who’s always talking about them – you’re the one who gets all _angsty_ and _lame_ every time the moon gets a little bit bigger. But just because _you’re_ in love with wallowing in your misery doesn’t mean every other person has to be, too. Maybe I’m completely happy and _fine_ , Topher Sewell! Have you ever thought about that?”

Topher was quiet for a second. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I have. And I concluded that you aren’t. Because if you were, you’d be a robot. And I don’t have robots as friends.”

Hannah’s ears were buzzing; her lips were trembling; if she’d been in walking distance of her house, she’d have run straight out the door, never mind saying goodbye to Chloe or Ella or any of the others.

She should never have sent that text. How could she have been that naïve? She’d known what Topher was like. The way his mind worked. The conclusions he was likely to come to.

“I’m sorry, Han,” said Topher, looking abashed. “I knew this would upset you. I told myself it wouldn’t. I didn’t want it to.”

“It didn’t _upset_ me,” said Hannah gruffly. “You’re just wrong.”

“I just think that sometimes, people… some people, anyway… they don’t tell you what they’re really thinking. Because they think it’s the best way to keep you happy, and that’s all they care about – you being happy. But I didn’t think you liked that. I thought you’d want me to be honest with you.”

Hannah had to look away from him again.

“The only thing I’ve ever wanted is for people to be honest with me,” she said.

She got off the couch. She scanned his face for signs of superiority. There weren’t any that she could spot, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there.

“I’m sorry,” Topher repeated. “Can we call a truce? Be friends again?”

“We’re still friends,” said Hannah, but she left it at that. She could use another cup of punch, and as much as she didn’t feel like dancing, it seemed like the best way to pretend that this conversation had never happened.

She speed-walked into the garden before he could follow and bounded into a cluster of dancing college students, all drunker than she could ever hope to be. Once she’d gotten their attention, she grinned and did a slightly lopsided twirl. She curtsied, and they cheered.

***

Hannah had intended to be angry at Topher for the next few days, keeping a curt distance until she could resume their friendship without hurting her pride too much, but that wasn’t the way things worked out.

First, after the effects of the alcohol wore off, both she and Topher were needed to help calm Harry down. Although they assured him over and over again that they didn’t hold his behavior at the party against him, he seemed to be under the impression that they’d been depending on him to act a certain way, and that he’d failed them.

“It’s not _me,_ ” he said. “I’m supposed to be the calm one. The responsible one. I’m supposed to take care of people.”

Naturally Hannah scoffed at this and brought up as many embarrassing Harry moments as she could think of, focusing especially hard on an incident involving a Pop Tart, his sister Celia, and an angry squirrel, which had resulted in the least-calm Harry she had ever seen. But even after letting Hannah tease him, Harry didn’t look any happier.

“I’ve never not been in control of myself before,” he said. “Is that what I’m really like, deep down? This sad idiot who messes up other people’s houses and ruins parties for my friends?”

“Yes,” said Hannah without missing a beat, and grinned until she noticed that Harry still looked hurt. “ _No_ , you dumbo. Stop overthinking it. You’re upset about Seb. Of course you were going to do something like that. But it was funny, so you might as well laugh about it. And you didn’t ruin anything.”

He seemed a little better after that, although Hannah made a mental note never to let him get that drunk again.

The second thing was that Nicolas’ court date had been set. Visiting hours were forwarded to Topher, and he was given permission to speak to Nicolas at last. When Hannah saw Topher’s face, she knew that it would do no good to draw out their argument any longer.

“I want you to come with me,” he said. “You and Harry.”

Hannah agreed immediately. Angry or not, she’d be a horrible friend if she let him go alone.

***

Nicolas was sitting across from them. His hands had been cuffed behind his back. A corrections officer stood sentinel at the door.

He looked more or less the same as Hannah remembered, except maybe a little skinnier, and a little more guarded, and he had grown his red hair out. He didn’t look the way she’d expected.

“I’m Hannah,” she said, trying to be helpful, because Topher was staring straight ahead with his jaw locked, and somebody had to start the conversation. “I used to see you at full moons. When we were younger.”

“I remember,” said Nicolas. “You’re a Type Three too. I used to think you kind of deserved it. You and that other kid were so annoying, the way you were tapping on the walls and running around all the time. I wanted to kill you – no offense or anything. Full moons never exactly brought out the best in me.”

“It was Morse Code,” said Harry, smiling faintly.

Topher didn’t seem to hear him. It was clear that he was trying very hard to compose himself. His hands were clenched in his lap, and his expression was drawn.

“So… that’s the guy I bit?” said Nicolas to Hannah. “Your friend?” He frowned. “Christopher Sewell?”

“Topher,” said Topher, still very pale in the face. “It’s Topher.”

“Topher,” Nicolas repeated, and gave him a small nod. “Cool. So you’re here to look me in the eyes and force me to admit how sorry I am, right?”

Hannah could see Topher shaking. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I am.”

“Right,” said Nicolas. “Well, Topher, I’m sorry. I don’t remember doing it; I didn’t _want_ to do it or anything; but that’s why you’re here, so I’ll say it – I’m sorry. I just want to make sure you understand that _hearing_ me say that isn’t going to change anything. There’s probably never going to be a cure. It sucks, but that’s the way it is.”

“I know,” said Topher softly. “I accepted that a long time ago.”

“Great,” said Nicolas. “Then you’re one step ahead of where most of us are already.”

There was a brief silence. Neither Nicolas nor Topher showed signs of saying anything more. Nicolas was staring at the clock, as if willing the minute hand to speed up the fifteen minutes Topher had been allotted. Topher’s face was identical to the way it had been when Hannah had first met him – furrowed, white, and haunted.

Hannah cleared her throat.

“Nicolas,” she said, as matter-of-factly as she could, “We need to know _why_ you bit Topher. You can’t just say sorry. You have to _explain_.”

“You’re a Type Three,” said Nicolas. “You know exactly why I bit him.”

“Um, no,” said Hannah. “I don’t.”

He sighed. His eye contact was only with Hannah. He wasn’t looking at Topher at all.

“Look… do you really want me to explain why the wolf does what it does? Why it wants what it wants? Are you trying to tell me that your wolf wouldn’t do exactly the same thing, if you gave it half a chance? Are you trying to tell me that you’d be able to – I dunno – control it, or something?”

“Of course not,” Hannah snapped. “That’s what the Moon Pill is for. And _you_ weren’t taking it.”

“It didn’t work on me,” said Nicolas. “It never worked the way it was supposed to. I’d be fine one minute, and then the next minute the wolf would have started ripping feathers out of my mattress. Rose and David tried to help for a while, but eventually I told them I wanted to take a break. Stop trying. Lock myself up and deal with it alone. And I lied, okay; I said I’d go to the hospital by my college, but a friend offered me a room, and I used that instead. It seemed pretty secure. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. But my college found out I wasn’t doing things the _legal_ way, and instead of actually trying to help me, the way colleges are supposed to do when someone has a problem, they kicked me out. And I guess I kind of hit rock bottom at that point.”

He shook his head at Hannah, who was still glaring at him as hard as she could. “Tell me, what would you do in that situation? Run back to the doctors and let them try even more chemistry experiments on you? Or handle things yourself?”

“I’d _never_ do what you did,” said Hannah. “Never.”

“Well, let it happen to you before you judge me,” said Nicolas. “Even after I got expelled, I _tried_ to be a good little boy. I tried going back to the pills; I tried locking myself up at home. But one night, the pills failed again, and the wolf got out. Broke straight through the door of the room I was in and spent the rest of the night running around the neighborhood. I guess it got more determined. The thing was, I didn’t feel as shitty as I usually do after a full moon. The wolf had gotten what it wanted. It didn’t punish me the way that it usually did… I felt pretty damn great, actually.”

“So because _you_ felt good, you decided to stop locking yourself up. How considerate of you.”

“It wasn’t, like, a conscious decision, okay? The wolf _wanted_ to be free. Have you ever thought about how much of your life you’ve spent fighting it? Do you remember what it was like before the Moon Pill? How it felt to shut yourself in that room, even all you wanted to do was run? I just _couldn’t_ anymore, okay?”

“No,” said Hannah.

“I didn’t even know I’d bitten anyone until they told me. It’s not like I went all this time pretending it didn’t happen. It’s just that I stopped fighting it. I did what werewolves are _supposed_ to do – what nature made us to do. And I’m sorry about that, because it’s a lot of shit for you, Topher.” He looked at Topher at last. “But at the same time, I’m not sorry at all. Because this was always what my life was going to be. Ever since that asshole bit me when I was four. I didn’t have a chance. And that’s not my fault.”

“It’s the wolf’s fault,” said Topher finally.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s your fault, too,” Topher continued, and Hannah thought he looked as if he had suddenly understood something. “Because once you’ve been bitten, that’s it. You’re the wolf and the wolf is you. And anybody who tries to separate them – they’re just lying to themselves.” He took a deep breath. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Nicolas resolutely, as the minute hand on the clock slid toward the quarter-hour mark. “That’s what I think.”

Topher stood up. Hannah and Harry automatically stood up beside him, so that they were flanking him on either side. Topher raised his chin.

“If that’s what you think,” he said, “then _fuck you.”_

That was when Hannah forgave Topher completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Topher. He really *wants* to be intimidating, but he's just not.
> 
> On a completely separate note... over on Tapas, Hannah was just selected as a Staff Pick, which is *incredible* and has meant about double the number of readers I'd originally had. I'm still over the moon about it. I'd never expected to be able to *talk* to other people about Hannah and co., and now I am, and it's just been surreal. Obviously I'm a little more isolated and unseen on this section of AO3, but hey, if you care to leave a comment or anything, I'm just as much here as there.


	18. Haunted

And then it was September, and Hannah was a senior. Tom and Andrew left for their second year at college. Gulliver started eighth grade, and Moe began middle school. Hannah let her mother take her picture in front of the Trevarthen school sign, wearing her uniform with the sleeves rolled up and that skewed half-bun that had taken her so long to learn as a freshman. She felt hundreds of years old.

She and Topher had barely discussed the conversation with Nicolas in the time since it had happened; there was an unspoken agreement between them not to. Hannah knew that Topher was ashamed of how rarely he had spoken, how little he had managed to get across, how the righteous anger he had been so sure about had not come through to Nicolas. On the way home, in an effort to make him feel better, Hannah had gone on at length about what a _sociopath_ Nicolas was, how she’d been an _idiot_ not to have realized what he was capable of, how the prison guards should _lock him away forever_ and feed the key to an angry pit bull with digestion problems.

Topher gave a dull shrug, but he finally met her eyes, and that was progress. “Thanks, Han.”

Hannah didn’t mention Nicolas after that, but she knew that he was taking up a lot of space in Topher’s thoughts anyway. Still, she also knew that Topher knew she understood. Whenever he got the same look on his face that he’d had in Chinatown, Hannah scrounged her head for something funny to say until Topher laughed, or at least until he pretended to. It was nice, feeling like she could help, even if wasn’t a lot.

Unfortunately, there was little else that was nice about twelfth grade. It was fast becoming the worst school year Hannah had ever experienced. The focus of everything had suddenly become college applications, and there was no way to escape them. Hannah filled out forms with a leaden stomach, imagining tight-lipped, grade-obsessed university employees tutting over what she’d written. Min frequently broke down in tears, Aimee bit her fingernails down to the core, and Ella couldn’t stop rattling off the average GPAs of every college within a hundred-mile radius. Hannah found it exhausting.

The madness didn’t end at school, either. Hannah’s father signed her up for the SAT three times, insisting that colleges would be impressed by her dedication. She spent hours crouched over a copy of _The Best American Colleges, Sixth Edition_ , scribbling stars next to any place that looked like it might be bearable. She also had a long and painfully awkward conversation with her parents about handling full moons on a college campus, in which Hannah said nothing, her father said too much, and her mother kept looking at her with her mouth twisted up, as though she were about to cry.

However, even school couldn’t measure up to the worst thing in Hannah’s life that autumn. By October, it had become apparent that the lycanthropic episode she’d had the previous winter was not an isolated event.

Because the same thing had happened again. And again. She hadn’t experienced a normal transformation since late June, and even that one had come in the wake of an episode in May.

It wasn’t _too_ difficult for Hannah to rationalize this to herself. Maybe the wolf was just unhappy. Full moons were still anything but normal, after all. The only times they ever resembled the vaguely acceptable experiences they used to be was when Tom and Andrew were home, and that summer, they had been away. Tom had been a counselor at a summer camp in Wisconsin, and Andrew had gone to Ireland on a study abroad program. Even Gulliver had left, for a robotics camp that he’d spent weeks applying for. The house felt lonely and empty.

“What happened to your carpet?” said her father, peering at the corner where last month’s wolf had shredded it.

“The vacuum chewed it,” said Hannah. “I think it’s broken.”

Her father’s forehead wrinkled, but he seemed to believe her, and that was good. Especially since Hannah hadn’t actually vacuumed in months.

But when she had another episode just before Halloween, fear began to gnaw at the lining of her stomach. She was as certain as ever that she couldn’t tell anybody – that would mean admitting that she’d lied for almost a year, as well as going to the hospital again, which she had no intention of doing – but the unthinkable idea that her parents might somehow find out began haunting her in her sleep. Several times, Hannah awoke in the middle of the night with the conviction that they had discovered the truth and were about to confront her with it. She emerged from sleep in a shaky sweat and paced her bedroom floor for what seemed like hours. It was getting harder to convince her brain to avoid the subject.

One morning, after an especially bad dream, Hannah got ready for school as quickly as she could, thinking that a run around the block might take her mind off things. She was on her second lap when she started to get the sense that something wasn’t right – a vague but persistent prickling on the back of her neck. She frowned and took stock of her surroundings. The pop song she’d been running to was still blasting in her ears, and the slight breeze that was playing around her shoulders hadn’t gotten any stronger. Then she looked up.

An eidolon was drifting lazily above her head, like a tattered, ashy flag.

Hannah’s heartrate immediately tripled. It had been one thing at Lervis – eidolons had been everywhere; it had made sense that one of them followed her outside by accident. But _here?_ In Curnow? Had she caught it from her mother? She hadn’t been worrying about anything. Her mind wasn’t caught in a cycle she couldn’t control. She had only been trying to forget.

She fought to remember how she’d made the Lervis eidolon go away. She didn’t think it had been too difficult. She’d just asked it to leave, hadn’t she?

“Go,” she said, trying to keep all emotion out of her voice. “You don’t belong here.”

But this time, the eidolon did not respond. Instead, it swept further downward, so that it was level with her nose.

Hannah took a deep breath and tried again. And again. Each time, the eidolon moved a little closer until it finally landed next to her shoulder, bobbing cruelly up and down alongside her.

She sat down on the curb to think. She definitely couldn’t go to school like this. And there was no question of going home. If her mother saw it… she couldn’t begin to imagine. Her parents had still never really acknowledged the fact that Hannah’s mother struggled with eidolons. Hannah had no idea what would happen if they were forced to.

The only thing that seemed remotely doable was going to Curnow Hospital and trying to track down Rose and David. As werewolf specialists, they were likely to have a better understanding of supernatural creatures than anyone else Hannah knew, and she couldn’t see them telling her parents about it if she asked them not to. She was sure, though, that they would want to know that she’d been properly excused from school, so she took out her phone and called the Trevarthen front office.

It was much easier than she expected to put on her mother’s voice and pretend that she’d just been diagnosed with strep throat. The secretary didn’t seem to suspect a thing.

Her next task was to walk to the hospital without being seen. She glanced over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure that nobody was watching her. The eidolon swayed back and forth with each step. Hannah knew that she wasn’t supposed to think about it being there – that it would only stay longer if she did – but its presence was impossible to ignore. It was like having a second, more sinister shadow. One that watched her every move.

She knew that Rose and David spent most of their time sifting through paperwork in their offices, so once she arrived, that was where she headed. She ignored the curious looks of the people who joined her in the elevator and stared straight ahead. She was the only person who ascended to the top floor.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long.

“Hannah?”

Rose had been walking through the lobby at the very moment that Hannah emerged. They stared at each other for a few seconds as Rose took stock of the situation.

“Why don’t you come round to my office,” she said at last. “I was going to meet David at the Starbucks downstairs… but that can wait.”

Hannah followed her through the glass doors and down the hallway, keeping her eyes on the ground until she was safely on Rose’s pink sofa.

“Right then,” said Rose, her voice even. “You’ve got a guest with you today.”

“Yeah,” said Hannah. “Can you make it go away?”

Rose cocked her head, and Hannah recognized the look in her eyes: Rose was thinking very carefully. “That… depends. You’ll have learnt about eidolons in school, of course. But I’m guessing you wouldn’t’ve come to me if any of those techniques had worked for you. You’ve tried distracting yourself? Talking to people? Meditation?”

 _“Meditation?”_ said Hannah, wrinkling her nose. “No thanks.”

“Well, it can be helpful for some people,” said Rose. “But I suppose in this case, the only thing to do is to get right down to it. There’s something bothering you, Hannah, and it’s highly unlikely that this eidolon is going to leave you alone until you do something about it. It can be genetic, you know – the predisposition for eidolons. I don’t suppose your mum’s ever mentioned that.”

“No,” said Hannah shortly. The eidolon swept around her face and hovered by her ear, casting the corner of her eye into shadow.

“Okay. Well then, the only thing for you to do is to talk about it. Eidolons usually scatter rather quickly once you’ve managed to do that. I know talking about these things can be difficult; that’s the reason people struggle with eidolons in the first place. But I’ve had my own brushes with eidolons – as recently as a few months ago, even. So I can assure you that I understand. And nothing you tell me will leave this room if you don’t want it to. I can promise you that.”

Contrary to her hopes, talking to Rose was making Hannah more uncomfortable, not less. If she kept going at this rate, she’d be stuck with the eidolon for the rest of her life. But she certainly wasn’t going to tell Rose the truth.

“I found something out a few months ago,” she said hesitantly. “Something about the person who bit me.”

She hadn’t known she was going to say it until she had, but after a second of thought, it seemed like a stroke of genius. She didn’t especially want to tell Rose about Srebrenka, but talking about that was much better than the alternative. And maybe she’d be able to learn something. Maybe Rose would be able to confirm that Srebrenka had never set foot in Curnow.

Hannah ended up telling Rose most of the whole story – modifying it, of course, as necessary. In this version, Aunt Celeste had never told Hannah anything, and she _certainly_ hadn’t snuck out the bathroom window. Rose only nodded as Hannah told her about discovering that Srebrenka had left Wisconsin for Virginia. Hannah finished, as she knew she must, with an extra warning.

“You really can’t tell my parents,” she said. “Especially my mom. She’d completely freak out – she doesn’t think I know anything. She’d probably be crying for days.”

“I think your mum may be stronger than you think,” said Rose. “But I’ve said I’ll keep this conversation private, and I _will_. Now, it happens that Lervis isn’t the only place with records on the person who bit you. David and I have them, too – we received them when you were transferred here as our patient. So we’ve known about Srebrenka for a long time.”

Hannah stared. She definitely hadn’t expected that.

“I should be able to ease your mind. In fact, I rather wish you’d come to me right after this happened. It might have saved you a lot of worry –”

“I wasn’t worrying,” said Hannah, staunchly ignoring the eidolon winding its way around the back of her neck.

“Well,” said Rose, “Srebrenka did come to us several years ago. I think you’d just turned thirteen. We were, as you might imagine, in communication with your parents about it, and they were very clear that you were to have as little disruption in your life as possible. They asked us to keep her visit between us, and we did. They were also given the option to meet with Srebrenka, at her invitation. They turned the meeting down, and Srebrenka left Curnow several months later.”

Hannah couldn’t fault her parents for that. However, the knowledge that Srebrenka had been in Curnow for as long as a few _months_ – coupled with the fact that her parents had ordered Rose and David not to tell her anything about it – stung more than she might have expected.

“You _know_ she left Curnow?” she said. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” said Rose. “I can’t discuss the particulars of her case with you, but she’s not been here since. When she made her move to Virginia, the law required that she check in with us. We updated her files, she stayed in one of the houses the hospital keeps for such purposes, and when it was clear that your parents had no interest in hearing from her, she left. I don’t know where she is now. But I know she isn’t here.”

“She could be nearby, though, couldn’t she? Maybe she’s hiding out in Leesburg or somewhere.” Hannah stopped, realizing that she sounded paranoid and ridiculous. “I mean – she wanted to meet my parents _that_ badly? That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Curnow Hospital serves everyone with lycanthropy in the area. We’d know if she was in Leesburg, or even DC. And she wanted to apologize, Hannah. Your parents had every right to refuse her apology, but she meant well. She wasn’t here to follow you, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Hannah shook her head, realizing only then how furious she was. Whether or not Srebrenka had left the area, the fact remained that she had been here, in _Hannah’s_ hospital. She had probably sat in this very office. It didn’t matter if Srebrenka wanted to apologize; she should have known to stay away. She had already done enough damage. Hannah opened her mouth to contradict Rose.

But Rose broke her train of thought first.

“Look,” she said, pointing. “Look up, Hannah.”

Hannah looked. And – yes, at last, the eidolon was drifting away, up toward the ceiling, further away than it had been since Hannah had first seen it. Her chest swelled with warm, sweet relief.

Rose got up and opened the window. They watched as the eidolon wafted through it, fluttered westward, and was gone.

“You were angry,” said Rose, smiling. “Not a _recommended_ method for getting rid of them, but it can work if the eidolon hasn’t stuck with you long enough to know your patterns. Worked for me a few times, in fact. You converted your fear to anger, which gave the eidolon no more reason to follow you. Of course, more often than not, anger is really fear disguised, and longer-term eidolons usually manage to figure that out. But I hope you’re not still worried. Srebrenka isn’t here. I can promise you that.”

Hannah, of course, knew the real reason the eidolon had gone away. The memories of her nightmares – and the reasons she’d been having them in the first place – had faded from her mind as she’d learned that even more secrets had been kept from her; even more lies told. But she wasn’t about to explain that to Rose.

Instead, she was making plans. She’d have to be extra careful now; that was all. Put up a barrier in her head. Think about only funny, irrelevant things on her way to and from school. Make sure that even the hungriest eidolon would want nothing to do with her.

“I’m fine,” she said, accepting the hug Rose gave her. “I was just being stupid. Say hi to David for me.”

“You can tell him yourself. He’s having coffee downstairs with Mrs. Robeson – I’m going to join them. I’m sure they’d both be delighted to see you.”

Hannah played with the idea for a minute. She missed David and his delusional belief that she would someday beat him at chess, and she’d never gotten the chance to tell Mrs. Robeson how much she’d liked her Rumon article. But she’d been at the hospital for long enough; she was already starting to feel claustrophobic. And they were sure to ask her why she’d come, and Hannah felt too tired to think up another plausible lie.

“I have to get back,” she said. “But thank you. For not telling my parents. And for… telling the truth and stuff.” She kept her eyes on the ground.

“You’re very welcome,” said Rose seriously. “And I hope we can meet up for coffee sometime soon. Without your unexpected guest, of course.”

“It won’t happen again,” said Hannah. She’d never let another eidolon find her. Not ever.

From then on, even thinking about her nightmares was off-limits.

***

It was a relief when Thanksgiving finally came, and with it, the promise of an entire week off. Tom and Andrew came home within a day of each other, displaying that strange, cordial friendliness toward one another that Hannah had noticed after they started college. Hannah was so happy to have them back that she only remembered the upcoming full moon when she woke up to a brown-tinted world a day later.

Still, she brushed aside her disappointment fairly quickly. Her brothers were back now; she would have people to be with, people who didn’t care if she was trapped inside a wolf’s body or not. She knew there was no way the wolf would betray her again with Tom and Andrew there to keep her company.

The moon rose just after ten on the day after Thanksgiving. Her parents came in and checked her over, and then Tom and Andrew were allowed to come up. She heard their feet running up the stairs and their hands thrusting open the door, and then there they were, standing in her room. And she wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t _exactly_ like it had been before, but that was okay. There was no Gulliver and Moe to tease – at ten o’clock, it was too late for them to be awake anyway. But the night was finally the way it should be. Just her and her big brothers. After all this time.

Tom and Andrew took turns reading aloud from an old comic book they’d liked when they were younger and still living in Wisconsin. At first, they held the panels up so that Hannah could see them, and then described them in detail when that proved too complicated. Watching and listening to them, Hannah could almost convince herself that they hadn’t ever grown up, grown apart, and moved away.

When the wolf’s toes starting tingling, Hannah just put it down to contentment.

But then they started tingling more, and the tingling spread, and it reached her legs, and she knew what was happening. She bumped Andrew hard in the stomach, because it meant he would pay attention, and looked frantically at the half-closed door, but he stared in confusion, and _damn_ it, wasn’t he supposed to be smart one? She tried Tom – wrenched the comic book out of his hands – felt the numbness spread to the wolf’s chest – and then _up,_ to the deepest recesses of her human mind –

 _No_ , Hannah whispered. A silent whisper, a pleading one, just to herself.

But the ability to control herself spiraled away from her, like falling stars on a blanket of black.

And the wolf swallowed her whole.

***

She woke up shaking. She tried to make herself stop, but the wolf didn’t want to. Or maybe it wasn’t the wolf. Maybe it was her.

She didn’t know what had happened.

Hannah looked around; tried to focus. The room was empty; the door was shut. Obviously Tom and Andrew had gotten out at some point, but had they made it in time? Had they realized what was happening? _Had she_ – but of course she hadn’t; she couldn’t have –

She glanced at the clock and learned that it was 2:49 in the morning. It didn’t help. She didn’t know what time she’d lost herself.

Hannah listened as hard as she could. It wasn’t at all like the last time she had been caught, when she was thirteen and scared and had no idea what was happening to her. No voices drifted into the wolf’s sharp ears from downstairs. The house was silent.

So she sat in the corner, as huddled and small as she could make herself, until the sun rose and the wolf’s body finally released her. She crawled into bed, still shaking, white in the face, closing her eyes as tightly as she could against the light that burned them.

She only opened them again when Tom and Andrew appeared at her bedside.

“Shh,” said Tom, his face unreadable. “It’s seven o’clock. Nobody else is awake yet.”

Hannah looked them over and felt a beautiful, calming sense of relief. They seemed all right. More importantly, they were _there_ , in her bedroom; they weren’t in the hospital. Which meant –

“We’re all okay,” said Andrew, his hands knotted together. “We got out in time. But you scared us, Han. We thought – I mean, Mom and Dad told us that had stopped happening. A long time ago.”

Hannah didn’t know what to say.

After a minute, she muttered, “Do they know? The parents?”

Tom and Andrew looked at each other.

“No,” said Tom. “They were asleep when you… when it happened. We didn’t think it was worth waking them up. Not after we locked the door and everything.”

“We kept watch,” added Andrew. “Outside your room. All night. We took turns.”

Hannah tried to digest this. Somehow she wasn’t able to process it very well. She shook her head, trying to jolt away the image of Tom and Andrew sitting outside, listening for any noises that might mean the wolf was trying to escape.

“They’re still sleeping,” she said. “Aren’t they?”

Tom nodded.

“Don’t tell them. Please. _Please_ don’t.”

“Hannah,” said Andrew. “I know that – that you don’t like this stuff. I know how much it sucks, and then there’s the hospital, and having Mom and Dad worry about you and everything. But they need to know. It’s not safe – and _you’re_ not safe –”

“I am.” Hannah forced herself to sit up, her head spinning in protest. A plan – she needed a plan. “It was just a fluke, Andrew, okay? I think I might have forgotten one of my pills. I… kind of forgot about the full moon because of Thanksgiving, and I was stupid, and I didn’t think. It’s not like before, I promise, it isn’t –”

The boldness of the lie made her stomach squirm. Since her first episode, her mother had been obsessed with making sure she got the Moon Pill at the same time every day. Hannah was so used to the routine that she took it without a second thought. But her words made the tightness in Andrew’s face smooth out a little bit. He sighed.

“You could have bitten us, Han. Or worse. You realize that.”

“But I didn’t! And I tried to warn you, you know I did, when it happened –”

“It’s hard to warn someone when you can’t say anything.”

“But you won’t tell them?”

Andrew sighed again, and glanced at Tom, who was staring at the floor.

“I won’t,” he said. “But if this _ever_ happens again – if you forget your pills or not – you can’t mess around with this kind of thing, Hannah –”

“I know, I know,” she said. The beautiful feeling of relief was getting stronger. She didn’t want to spoil it.

“Promise me that you _will_ tell them if something goes wrong again,” said Andrew. “Especially if no one’s there to see it happen.”

“I promise,” said Hannah.

Andrew gave a grave nod, and then finally – _finally –_ looked satisfied.

“Feel better, Hannah,” said Tom, with a small, awkward smile.

Hannah closed her eyes, buried her face in her pillow, and tried to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which justifying things to oneself and ignoring one's problems doesn't... really... work.


	19. Betrayal

A few days later, on a quiet Thursday afternoon, Hannah, Topher, and Harry had a conversation. They were lying sprawled in Harry’s basement, and Hannah was thinking blissfully about nothing at all until Topher opened his mouth.

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we hadn’t been bitten?” he said. “Do you think we would still be the same people?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot,” said Harry, after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure it would have made much difference.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” scoffed Hannah, ignoring the way her heart had started to race. “You’re still _you.”_

“But I think I might have been kind of a special case,” said Harry. “I mean, I was born in Curnow. We never had to move or anything. And I’m a Type One, so… it wasn’t as hard for me as it is for most people. It would have been different with Seb, though. I wouldn’t have had to worry about what he thought. It would have been a more normal relationship.”

“But you _didn’t_ have to worry about Seb,” said Hannah. “It _was_ a normal relationship.”

“He texted me the other day,” said Harry in a low voice. “Said he was sorry it happened. We might meet up sometime soon… I don’t know; I have to think about it. But I don’t think we’d have broken up if I hadn’t been bitten. So that’s one thing that would have changed.”

This was so ridiculous that Hannah had to stop herself from saying so straight out. They had broken up because Harry was afraid, not because he was a werewolf. But before she could come up with a tactful way to express this, Topher broke in.

“ _Everything_ would be different if I hadn’t been bitten,” he said. “I mean, I’d still live in DC with my dad. I’d still be at my old school. I’d never have had to deal with any of this stupid Nicolas stuff. I’d be… I don’t know.” He looked up at the fluorescent basement lights. “I’d be who I was supposed to be, I think.”

Hannah made the loudest, most derisive noise she could manage. “You _are_ who you’re supposed to be. It happened, so that means it was supposed to happen. And you should remember that you wouldn’t have known _us_ if Nicolas hadn’t bitten you. You’d still be in DC with a bunch of people who are way less cool than we are! So you should really be counting your blessings.”

“Yeah, but –” Topher still sounded reluctant. “It’s just that I was so _close_ to not being bitten, you know? If we’d arrived a few minutes later. If I’d stood somewhere else in line. If we’d decided to get more expensive tickets and go on a different night. Don’t you ever feel that way, Hannah?”

Hannah looked at him. He looked sad again, and tired, and she couldn’t think of a joke that would make it better. She offered a hand, and he folded it into his.

Like before, it was much warmer than she expected.

She shook her head. “No. Because you can’t change stuff. And it’s just going to make things worse if you wish that you could.”

He gave her a half-smile and squeezed her hand, which made her stomach flip. Hannah felt warm and happy and altogether wrong. She made herself peel her fingers away from Topher’s, tucking them safely into her crossed arms.

“Maybe it happened for a reason,” said Topher.

“Maybe,” said Hannah. But she wasn’t really thinking about what he was saying.

***

When Hannah came home from school the next day, it only took her a few seconds to realize that something was wrong. The first sign was her father’s car, which was sitting in the driveway, even though it was hours before he was due to come home from work. The second was the complete absence of her younger brothers’ squabbling voices, which usually filled the house at this time of day.

The third and worst was the sight that greeted her seconds after opening the front door. Both of her parents were sitting at the dining room table, their faces grave. They turned at the sound of her footsteps in the hall.

Hannah didn’t have to meet their eyes to know what this was about.

She took one look and fled.

But her father was too quick for her. He leapt up from his chair, sending it tumbling backward, and blocked the door, grabbing one of her hands in the process. Hannah yelped and tried to slap him away. He dragged her forward, with a strength she hadn’t known he possessed.

“You’re hurting me,” she snarled.

“You hurt us,” said her father shortly, and he wrestled her into a chair.

Still gripping her hand, he looked into her eyes. His forehead was furrowed more tightly than Hannah had ever seen it.

“Explain,” he said. “Now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what we’re talking about,” said her mother. Her eidolon hovered low above her head. Everything about her expression was as hard as granite, except for the shape of her eyes, which were creased and fearful and full of hurt. “We know everything, Hannah Penelope. What you did. What you hid from us.”

Hannah kept resisting, but her father’s grip held fast. “I didn’t hide _anything.”_

“What about the state of your carpet, then?” Her father spoke in a voice that was far too even to express the horrible things that Hannah saw on his face. “You told us that there was something wrong with the vacuum. I checked it this afternoon. It’s working perfectly. And the way that carpet got more and more torn up as the months went on –”

“It’s an old carpet, okay?”

Hannah told herself that she just had to keep talking. They would believe her eventually, no matter what Andrew had said to them. They _would_. She just had to make them see.

“Then we looked under your bed,” said her mother, “and found this.”

She held something up. It was the shirt that the wolf had shredded, nearly a whole year ago. The ribbons that remained looked even more pathetic now than they had at the time.

“Oh, that,” said Hannah, trying to laugh. “That was Aimee’s dog. You remember Shayla, right? She went a little crazy at our last sleepover –”

“I don’t know if there would be any purpose in grounding you at this stage,” said her father. “You have betrayed our trust so thoroughly that I can’t imagine what the appropriate punishment would be. Do you even _understand_ the situation you’re in right now?”

Hannah said nothing. They couldn’t condemn her if she refused to speak.

“You’ve broken the most crucial law concerning lycanthropy in the country. The one that allows people to _trust_ you. The one that lets them feel _safe_. If any of the neighbors found out what you did, do you know what would happen? They’d kick us out of this house within ten minutes. And not a single person would protest. Not our landlord. Not your teachers. Not your classmates. Definitely not the government. Because you’ve proven to them that you’re dangerous.”

“But I’m _not –_ ” Hannah did everything she could do to stop her voice from faltering, but it faltered anyway, and her parents glared at her.

“You haven’t broken the law only once, either. No, you’ve broken it again and again – at least four times, I think, if we count the carpet and the shirt and what your brother told us as separate incidents, which I think they were. If you were eighteen, they’d throw you in jail. Twelve months is the minimum sentence. Do you _understand_ what you’ve done, Hannah? Can you tell me that?”

Hannah fought to look anywhere but her father’s eyes. She found the chandelier – she imagined it falling down, smashing over her parents’ heads, leaving them speechless while she ran –

“But we didn’t call the police,” said her mother, and her voice was nowhere near as composed as her husband’s. “So we broke the law, too. Congratulations, Hannah: you’ve turned us into a whole family of criminals. Instead, we called Rose and David. They agreed with us that you should be admitted as soon as possible. If this has been going on for as long as we think, then that will be clear with a few blood tests. After that, they can start figuring out how to help you.”

Her lips trembled. Hannah kept looking at the chandelier. She could make out the vague shape of her reflection in one of the crystals.

“You endangered everyone. Our whole family. Is that all we mean to you? You could have hurt us – killed us, even; it’s happened. You could have bitten one of your brothers. Would that have made you happy? To – to watch Tom or Andrew or Gulliver or Moe suffer the same way you have? Is that what you wanted, Hannah? Were you trying to – to – I don’t know, get _company_ for yourself?”

Hannah stared at her, her heart thudding.

“No,” she said, her voice coming out much smaller and meeker than she had intended it to. “No, I –”

It wasn’t good enough. She needed to be stronger.

“I haven’t _suffered!”_ she ended up shouting, although she didn’t know what her words were going to be until they’d already come out of her mouth. “I’ve been _fine!_ All you’ve ever wanted was to pity me – I remember what it was like when we moved here! How you kept _looking_ at me, and _crying_ , and talking about me to every single person you ever met like I couldn’t even hear you! I’m _normal_ , I’ve _always_ been normal, this is just a stupid _thing_ and it’s only once a month and it’s not a big _deal_ , but you won’t stop talking about it, you won’t stop thinking about it, you won’t stop asking about it, and if I ever _have_ suffered it’s only because of _you!”_

She took a deep, shaky breath. The room was spinning a little.

“I know what you think of me,” she said, looking directly at her mother. “All you ever wanted was a daughter. But I was all you got, wasn’t I? I kept running around with Tom and Andrew, and being too loud and too silly, and then I got bitten by that stupid _werewolf_ – oh, and I know who she is, too, did you know that? Srebrenka Vukoja. I had to find out all by myself. Because you never bothered to tell me. You never told me _anything.”_

Her mother suddenly looked alarmed. “I had no idea that you wanted to know. I –”

Hannah didn’t let her finish.

“I got bitten by stupid Srebrenka Vukoja. And that was just the end of everything for you, wasn’t it? Because after that – after that, I was all _damaged_ and stuff. You had to _worry_ about me. You got so wrapped up in how _sad_ my life was that you let yourself get attacked by eidolons – and that’s another thing you never told me about! Because we didn’t have enough secrets in this family already! Because all you cared about was feeling sorry for _yourself.”_

“Hannah,” said her father.

Her mother was sobbing outright. The sight made the inside of Hannah’s head feel strangely detached, but she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t stop now –

“And _you!”_ she said to her father. “Always pretending to be honest and holding the family together and all _kinds_ of crap. You didn’t care that you were keeping pretty much everything about my life from me. No, you’d just sit me down right here and tell me that my entire life was going to be ruined if I didn’t do absolutely everything perfectly. Pretending like you were telling me the truth. When you weren’t. When you _never_ said a single word about why we left Wisconsin, or what Lervis was, or anything about Srebrenka, when I still turn into a fucking _wolf_ on the fucking _full moon_ every month – no, you didn’t care about telling me any of that –”

“Hannah,” said her father again. “We thought you didn’t want to talk about it. You always seemed angry when we talked about it. Mom and I discussed it many times. We thought you’d made yourself clear – Hannah, please calm down –”

“I’m calm,” Hannah hissed. “I’m calmer than I’ve ever been. Because now I finally know the truth. That this is how you’ve always thought of me, ever since that night in Wisconsin. That this is who I am to you. I’m someone to feel sorry for. Someone to lie to. And someone to be afraid of.”

With one swift movement, she tugged her hand out of her father’s, turned her back to the table, and stalked upstairs. Her parents watched her. They let her go.

“Half an hour,” said her father heavily. “We’ll talk in half an hour. Once we’ve – once we’ve all had time to cool off—”

Hannah didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying. She was too busy pounding on Andrew’s door, her fists slamming the thin layer of wood as hard as they could.

 _“Coward!”_ she screamed. _“Liar!_ I can’t _believe_ you – you _promised –_ ”

Andrew opened the door and almost hit Hannah with it. She stepped back, trying to look as imposing as she could, but only ended up looking as betrayed as she felt.

“I didn’t tell,” he said.

His expression was identical to their father’s. Hannah felt a new wave of hatred engulf her. His voice buzzed in her ears.

“I promised you I wouldn’t. I didn’t say anything to them.”

A second figure appeared behind Andrew. He gave Hannah a long, weary look.

“I did,” said Tom.

***

Hannah didn’t know how long it took for her eyes to stop leaking. (It didn’t count as crying. It _didn’t_ , because she wasn’t making any noise; she wasn’t burying her face in her hands. Her eyes were just leaking. She wasn’t crying.)

What she did know was that she’d been upstairs for longer than a half hour. At some point, her father had knocked on her door, but when she’d screamed something unintelligible at him, he’d only cracked it open and spoken through the gap.

“Make sure you pack for the hospital tonight,” he said gruffly. “We’re leaving first thing in the morning. I’ve already called your school.”

Hannah ignored him.

After a while it got dark, and her eyes finally dried, and the fury in her chest cooled to a slow burn – no less livid, but easier to manage, easier to live with. She paced. She hauled out her yellow duffel bag and glared into it. If she went to the hospital tomorrow, she’d be there for a month. There would be no Topher to cheer up this time. She’d be alone, playing increasingly boring games of chess with David, eating congealed cafeteria meatloaf, letting them poke her and prod her and take vials of her blood, when there was nothing they could do but wait, when the moon was weeks away…

Hannah started tossing clothes inside, not caring if they were folded or even clean. There would be nobody to see her in them anyway; nobody that she cared about. She looked at her phone for a minute before throwing it into the front pocket. What would Aunt Marissa think about this? Would she be on her side, after what had happened at the wedding? She’d said that she’d found the incident funny, that she wasn’t upset, but Hannah wasn’t sure she believed her. It surely must have changed _something_ about the way Aunt Marissa thought of her. Hannah would only embarrass herself more if she sent her aunt a text about all this…

More things got packed, haphazardly and without much thought. Books to read. An ugly plush duck that Harry had given her once as a joke. Stray earrings, swept off the dresser. Hannah had just decided that she was finished when something caught her eye.

It was the corner of a glossy piece of paper, poking out from under her mattress.

At first Hannah didn’t know what it was. She pulled it out, tilting her head to read the print on it – and then froze. She stared at it as the seed of an idea began to work its way through her head.

Slowly, she opened _The Washington Post Magazine_ and smoothed it out on her bed. Page 18 was folded and wrinkled and fell open automatically as Hannah pried the pages apart. _Inside Rumon_ , Hannah read. _An Exclusive Look at One of America’s Most Clandestine Communities…_

Hannah scanned the pages, searching for the evidence she needed. _Just two steps off the bus, I find myself in the middle of nowhere… a community for lycanthropes who wanted to avoid the drawbacks of living with people without the disease… more of a success than anyone could have imagined… no non-lycanthropes would be permitted inside…_

There it was. If Hannah went to Rumon, nobody could follow her there. Not her parents; not her brothers; not Rose and David.

She’d be free. They would never be able to lock her up again.

Hannah shoved the magazine into her duffel bag on top of everything else and opened her laptop. Mrs. Robeson had mentioned the Blue Ridge Mountains… did that mean Rumon was somewhere near Roanoke? Hannah’s college search had taught her more than she’d ever wanted to know about Virginia geography. She Googled the Roanoke bus route and discovered that a shuttle ran throughout the day from a stop in DC. And there… at the very end…

“Rumon,” Hannah whispered.

The bus for that route appeared to leave only once a week, but as luck would have it, it left on Wednesday afternoons – and it happened to be a Tuesday night. If Hannah could get to Roanoke in time, she could make it… and there was a bus to DC that evening, and another one heading to Roanoke almost immediately afterward. Maybe it wasn’t the _fastest_ way to get there, but it would get the job done. All Hannah needed to do was get outside.

Well, she had escaped from a house without anyone finding out before. Tom had told her everything she’d needed to know. He’d even told her how to escape _this_ house.

 _“At home, there’s this tree right outside my window, and all I have to do is swing myself_ _out, climb onto a branch, and jump down. Easiest thing in the world.”_

Was Tom in his room now? Hannah listened hard. People were moving around downstairs – she caught the clinking of silverware, the shifting of chairs, and her father’s voice saying something about the dishes. It was dinnertime, then. Good.

Hannah grabbed her supply of Moon Pills and three hundred dollars she’d squirreled away over the years and slid them into her duffel bag. Then she hauled the whole thing onto her back and opened her bedroom door as quietly as she could.

She crept into Tom’s room and found the window already halfway ajar. It was like it was waiting for her.

***

Tom had been right: sneaking out of this house _was_ the easiest thing in the world. So was stealing away from the house in the dark as her family finished their dinner, oblivious to everything but their own selfishness. The streets were nearly empty at this time of night, and it was the easiest thing in the world for Hannah to get to the bus stop without a single person noticing her. The bus came, and it was the easiest thing in the world for Hannah to hop on, leaving Curnow far behind her, a sour old memory beneath the lemon-shaped moon that had just begun to wane.

Her phone started to ring as she was waiting at Union Station. _Home_ , it said. Hannah held the button down until the screen went black.

They could learn where she was in time. Until she got to Rumon, she was still underage, still vulnerable to the laws that bound her to her parents. She would have to be extra careful until she reached her destination.

The ride to Roanoke took six and a half hours, and Hannah tried to sleep them away, despite the fact that the bus bumped and jolted and kept stopping in places she had never heard of before. As the sun rose, the Blue Ridge Mountains came clearer and clearer into view. Hannah had never seen anything like them. They really were _blue_ , a layered mass of cobalt and cerulean beneath a thick layer of fog, bordering the horizon under a fiery sunrise. The bus pulled into the station, and still Hannah couldn’t stop staring.

At last, Hannah and three other bleary-eyed people staggered off the bus and into the heart of Roanoke. Hannah had never been so far south before and wished she had time to explore. Instead, she slipped into a McDonald’s and ordered the biggest breakfast she thought she could handle, complete with hotcakes, hash browns, bacon, and a large chocolate milkshake. She also decided it would be okay to turn her phone back on as long as she kept the Internet off, so that she could entertain herself with some Fruit Ninja until the bus to Rumon arrived.

But within seconds of her phone buzzing to life, Hannah realized that there was no chance of that. The icon at the top of the screen told her that she had one-hundred-and-four text messages. Fourteen voicemails. Twenty-three notifications on Facebook…

Mom. _Hannah, where are you?_

Dad. _Please come home immediately._

Andrew. _Please respond, Han. Please._

Tom. _Hannah, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. It’s just that I can always tell when you’re lying. And I thought it might get worse. Please don’t hate me._

Hannah deleted that one. Tom didn’t have the right to tell her anything anymore.

There were other messages, too, ones Hannah hadn’t anticipated.

Harry. _Did you run away from home? Everyone’s freaking out. CALL ME._

Ella. _Hannah, WTF?! Are you taking crazy pills? The police just came to my house looking for you. What’s going on?_

Aimee. _You haven’t been abducted, have you???_

Topher. _Hannah. Are you safe?_

Hannah felt an unexpected stab of guilt in her gut. She hadn’t even thought about her friends – what they would think; what they would say. She hadn’t imagined that her parents would call the police so quickly, or that the police would go to Ella’s. She had assumed that everyone would understand that she had left because she was angry. She hadn’t banked on anyone worrying about her safety.

In the end, she texted only two people back.

Harry. _I’m fine. You can tell my parents that. Can’t call._

Topher.

She didn’t know what to text Topher.

 _Yes,_ she wrote, and then thought harder.

_I’m sorry._

She sent it.

Then she lost herself in Fruit Ninja oblivion until the bus arrived.

***

There had been very few occasions in Hannah’s life when something had looked exactly the way she’d imagined it, but Mrs. Robeson had done her reporting well, and the sight that greeted Hannah after her final two hours on the bus could have been taken straight out of the magazine she was carrying. The bus driver even gave her a funny look as she wrestled her duffel bag to the ground.

“Are you sure this is where you want to be?”

Hannah nodded. “Never been surer.”

He drove away, leaving her far behind.

The mountains were, if possible, even more stunning here than they had been in Roanoke. If Hannah hadn’t known better, she might have thought that they weren’t mountains at all, but waves of solid, undulating sky. The forest behind her was almost as beautiful, reaching out leafy fingers to the mountains and meeting them halfway. Late autumn had only affected these trees so much: the leaves were like feathers made of flames, and it would be a while yet before the branches turned bare and blackened.

Hannah faced forward and found the gate that Mrs. Robeson had described. It stood high above her head and was set into a gray brick wall that seemed to go on for miles. It was made of wrought iron and inset with designs so elaborate that Hannah imagined it must have taken years to make. Most notable was the enormous full moon in the middle. A wolf was sitting beneath it, its body tense, its mouth curled in a long, defiant howl.

Hannah winced, then corrected herself. Pictures of wolves weren’t something to wince at here. Mrs. Robeson’s article had made that clear enough.

A sign had been set into the ground beside the gate. Hannah read it.

_This gate marks the beginning of Rumon territory. Non-lycanthropes are requested to vacate the area immediately. Lycanthropes with the intention of visiting or becoming naturalized citizens should press the button below and speak into the microphone. We will be with you shortly._

Hannah looked down. There was indeed a button at the bottom of the sign. It was round and yellow. Another full moon.

Or maybe it was just a button. Maybe she was starting to see full moons everywhere.

Hannah took a deep breath, straightened the duffel bag on her shoulders, and pressed it.


	20. Refuge

The woman who greeted Hannah at the gate was in charge of Rumon. Hannah was certain of this even before the woman had introduced herself, because everything about her radiated authority. She had long dark hair that she’d pulled back in a sleek, carefully pinned bun, and she was wearing a black blazer with a pair of lilac-colored slacks, so she’d obviously put in the effort – but that wasn’t quite it. Hannah thought it had more to do with her face. There was something deliberate and determined about the way that her mouth had been fashioned, and the expression in her eyes was sharp, as though she was used to expecting the worst, greeting it when it came, and then fending it off.

“I’m Hannah,” said Hannah, feeling vaguely as though she should curtsy. “Hannah Cobham.”

The woman gave a smile that did not so much as crease her eyes. “I’m Diana Clovis,” she said. “The mayor here. Have you come to join our community, or to visit?”

“I just ran away from home,” said Hannah. It startled her a little to hear the words spoken aloud, but she forged on. “I want to live here. At Rumon.”

“Well, we can certainly see about that,” said Diana Clovis briskly. “Come inside and I’ll check your status. Then we’ll plan the rest.”

She took Hannah’s shoulder and steered her through the gate, slamming it shut behind them. Hannah caught a glimpse of a neatly kept lawn, surrounded by a border of pine trees, before Diana ushered her into a large building made of the same gray brick as the wall. They went up a flight of stairs that spiraled around a silvery, sputtering fountain and into a long, narrow room containing a wooden table and an assortment of chairs. Diana closed the door as Hannah entered.

“Sit down,” she said, pointing to a chair all the way at the back of the room. “Hold out your finger, please.”

Hannah obeyed, nonplussed. Diana took a medical kit off a nearby shelf and opened it. She withdrew something that looked alarmingly like a needle and stuck it into Hannah’s outstretched finger before she could protest. A small blossom of blood bubbled to the surface.

“Press here,” she told Hannah, holding out a sliver of thick paper. Hannah did. Together they watched as Hannah’s blood sank into the paper and turned a slow, deep purple.

This time Diana’s smile did reach her eyes. “That seems to take care of that. If you weren’t a werewolf, your blood would have stayed red, and we’d have known you aren’t who you claim to be. That’s more of a problem for the state government than for us, of course, but we have to check. And I can’t pretend that I don’t like to have the extra confirmation. Just to make sure I know what I’m getting myself into.”

Hannah nodded and put her finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding. Diana gave her a piercing look, and Hannah hurriedly took it out, wiping it on her jeans instead.

“Now,” said Diana. “I give this speech to all my new recruits. What it comes down to is this: you’ve come to Rumon for a reason, Hannah. You don’t need to tell me what that reason is – although I have an idea I already know. People’s experiences tend to be remarkably similar. But I just want you to take a minute to reflect on it. Why you’ve come. Why you’ve chosen to leave the outside world behind.”

Hannah tapped her fingers on her knees, her mind on the verge of places she didn’t want to go. Why had she come? Because she couldn’t _take_ it anymore, that was why. Did she have to have any more reason than that?

“More often than not,” said Diana – almost, but not quite, gently – “the reason is shame. The outside world has been carefully constructed to make us feel ashamed of ourselves. To feel like we have to apologize for having been bitten, and for burdening others with our transformations. Most people take that shame with them through Rumon’s gates at first – but we can’t allow them to keep it. Not if we want to keep our community safe.”

Hannah didn’t know what she was supposed to say, so she merely shrugged.

“So,” said Diana. “I hope that from this moment onwards, you will count yourself lucky to be a werewolf. Once a month, we have the luxury of experiencing the world from a simpler – and yet infinitely more complex – point of view. We aren’t confined to our own minds and bodies the way the outside world is. And that’s a gift, not a curse. Be grateful for it, Hannah.”

Hannah couldn’t even begin to make sense of that – she was supposed to be grateful for the horrible feeling of being evicted from her own _head?_ But she had a feeling that voicing her thoughts would only make Diana talk longer, so she gave her a fervent nod and waited for more.

“There’s a welcome packet that I give all our new people, and you’ll get that in a moment.” Diana began shuffling through a filing cabinet. “There are a few forms you’ll need to fill out – which I apologize for, by the way; I know you’ve probably filled out enough forms to last a lifetime. First, though, I need to know a few things.” Diana withdrew a thin blue binder. “Are you still underage?”

Hannah nodded. “But not for much longer. I turn eighteen in May.”

“Hmm.” Diana’s sharp look grew more pronounced. “Despite that, I think it would best if you take on the same roles as the adults in the community. Most seventeen-year-olds do. However, since you’re technically still a minor, we’ll need to find you a sponsor. Let’s see… I think Amelia Marrock has room…”

She opened the binder and began flicking through it. Then she nodded, satisfied.

“The sponsorship system is really just a formality. It’ll give you a place to sleep and introduce you to people, but your sponsor won’t tell you when to go to bed or anything like that. Amelia is already hosting several others, although they’re all quite a bit older than you – but even so, you shouldn’t have a hard time fitting in.”

Hannah agreed immediately. A guardian who didn’t care what she did sounded like more freedom than she’d ever had in her life. And even if she didn’t like this Amelia Marrock, she’d be eighteen in six months anyway. Old enough to strike out her own, both inside and outside of Rumon.

“I’ll need those forms from you tomorrow at twelve o’clock sharp, along with any contraband you might have,” Diana went on. “In the meantime, you may meet your new housemates and get settled in – but please also read the full welcome packet before tomorrow. There’s some important information that you’ll need to know if you plan to stay.”

With that, the admissions process seemed to be over. Diana beckoned Hannah out of the room and through a different door than the one they’d entered through. Here the neat lawn had been replaced by tufts of green and yellow grass, separated only by a wide distribution of oaks and maples.

Diana followed a path that wove in and out of the trees, pointing out various landmarks. “That road will take you to our shops. We don’t have many, but we’ve got the basics. We use our own currency here – solvens – your welcome packet will tell you more.”

Further along, they spotted another path, which led to several community buildings: a school, a library, and a gym. Hannah’s favorite area was the broad stone circle with paths leading in four different directions, surrounding a round white building that glinted in the sunlight.

“The meeting circle,” Diana said. “The building in the middle is our town hall.”

Finally, they reached a row of cabin-like structures that bordered a small clearing. Diana led the way to the cabin at the very end of the line and knocked twice.

Amelia Marrock turned out to be a plump middle-aged woman whom Hannah thought resembled an owl. She had wispy tufts of gray-brown hair, a tiny pair of glasses that made it look like she was squinting all the time, and a pair of very precisely plucked eyebrows.

“Of course I’ll take her,” she said, beaming at Hannah. “Come on in, and I’ll fix you some dinner and introduce you to the others. Why don’t you stay for a few minutes, Diana?”

Diana gave a polite smile. “Thanks, but I was in the middle of some paperwork when she arrived. Hannah, I’ll be here to pick up your forms at twelve o’clock tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

And she left, walking at a brisk, steady pace, as Hannah was welcomed inside.

She got a brief tour before dinner. Amelia showed her the living room, which was twice the size of Hannah’s family’s and filled with the dancing light of a crackling fire. The kitchen furnishings were all wood, and there were several framed cross-stitch projects on the walls. Hannah stopped to look at one: it read _“The lair of the wolf is his refuge”_ and depicted a cabin not unlike the one she was inside. There was also a small library at the back of the house.

But if Hannah thought she might have a few minutes to read and collect her thoughts before meeting her new housemates, she was wrong. Hannah had barely sat down at the large hewn-wood table in the dining room when Amelia emerged with a steaming plate of macaroni and cheese and three additional people.

The first person Hannah noticed was a small girl who came running headlong into the room – the kind of child who might have looked angelic if it weren’t for the mischievous glint somewhere around the corners of her eyes. She had fine blonde hair tied back in a thin ponytail and bangs that met the tips of her eyebrows. Her eyes were green and very wide.

“I’m Tory,” she said. “Well, it’s _really_ Victoria, but nobody’s ever called me that. I just turned twelve last week. I got a ton of new books for my birthday. You can borrow them if you want. Well, most of them. There’s a couple I just want to keep for myself.”

“My daughter,” Amelia clarified, looking wry.

Tory beamed at Hannah. “If you’re seventeen, then it’s almost like I’m getting a sister! Because there’s only five years in between us. But I can be a little bit like the big sister too, because you’ve never been here before. I can show you around Rumon. I could even do it tonight, if you want.”

“I think she’s probably tired,” said another voice.

A rail-thin woman with a gray-streaked braid moved into view. She had an accent – a cool one, Hannah thought, although she couldn’t place it. She reached out and shook Hannah’s hand.

“I’m Brenna,” she said. Hannah noticed that her eyes looked pinched and a bit worried. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

“You too,” said Hannah, finishing her last bite of macaroni. “And you’re right. I’m completely exhausted. But then again, I haven’t slept in an actual bed for like, forty-eight hours. And there was a snoring guy next to me on the way here.”

“Snoring guys,” said a third voice, this one male. He also had an accent – a little like Rose’s, Hannah thought, only not quite. “A blight on an otherwise spotless world.”

He moved over toward Brenna, into the light. Hannah caught a glimpse of him – a wiry man with pinkish skin and scruffy blond hair, clutching a mug of coffee – before she noticed what was floating above his head. She immediately tensed. Unfortunately, he noticed.

“Don’t worry about Scarlett,” he said. “She’s a nuisance, but she sticks to me. Like an unusually committed leech.”

He laughed. Hannah didn’t. She was too busy wondering what kind of crazy you had to be to name an eidolon.

“Gwyn Bledwin,” he said, naming himself, and took a large swig of coffee, which looked thoroughly black. “She’s no trouble during the day, but she has a tendency to get a bit nasty at night, which is why she’s hung around all these years. Chewing on the furniture and so on, if you catch my drift. Still, I keep her on a tight leash. There’s no need to concern yourself.”

Hannah nodded. No other response seemed polite.

“He’s my teacher at school,” said Tory, reaching across the table to pat Gwyn’s hand. “All the other kids think I’m the best at spelling because he helps me. But he doesn’t.”

“And he won’t,” said Amelia firmly. “We do things the honest way in this household.”

“How come – I mean, no offense to any of you, but how come you _are_ a household?” said Hannah. “Were you guys friends growing up or something?”

Amelia, Gwyn, and Brenna looked at each other and laughed.

“I’d have to have had a pretty wide range of friends, as Gwyn’s about fifteen years younger than me,” said Amelia.

“And I only came to Rumon a few years ago,” said Brenna. “Amelia helped me find my feet.”

“I’ve been here for a long time,” said Gwyn, “but I only came to Amelia’s shortly before Brenna. Before that, I had my own house, over by the shops. Then a family arrived who needed more space than I did, so I offered to move into one of Amelia’s guest rooms. I was happy to do it. It was lonely sometimes, on my own.”

“Yes,” said Amelia, and a flash of something not quite so cheerful flitted across her face. “I’m grateful to have Gwyn and Brenna here. And you too, Hannah.”

“What about _me_?” said Tory.

“You can show Hannah where her bedroom is,” said Amelia. “I think it’s time she got some sleep.”

These words made Hannah feel twice as tired as she was already, and she stumbled down the hall after Tory. She pinched herself to check that she hadn’t fallen asleep long ago in Curnow and that Rumon hadn’t just been some wild dream. Nothing had felt quite real since Diana’s office.

Tory said good night at the door, and Hannah collapsed on the bed inside. Her room had wood-paneled walls, a quilted bedspread, and a desk next to the wardrobe. Like the rest of Rumon, it was almost indistinguishable from a camping lodge, but she didn’t mind; she’d have time to personalize it later. This would be her room for a long time. Maybe for years.

Strangely, sleep didn’t come as swiftly as it had promised. An area of Hannah’s brain that had lain dormant for the past few hours suddenly lit up, bringing a variety of images to the forefront.

Her parents, finding her room empty; then finding Tom’s open window. Her younger brothers, being told she was missing – or worse, having it kept from them. Harry, reluctantly showing Hannah’s text to her family, having to admit that he didn’t know where she was. Topher, checking his phone, reading what she’d written, his face clenched…

Hannah tossed and turned. Eventually the light in her head dimmed, and she drifted off to sleep. But it wasn’t a particularly restful sleep, and she didn’t understand why her heart was beating so fast when she woke up.

***

Hannah spent the whole next morning reading the welcome packet that Diana had given her.

On the first page, she found a folded map that had been color-coded in blue and yellow, which she promptly stuck up on her wall and tried to memorize. She decided that if she could keep track of the footpaths, it wouldn’t matter that trees blocked her vision at every turn. Interestingly, there seemed to be a large, gated fence blocking off the housing area from the forest behind it. Hannah wondered what that was for.

She flipped idly through the rest of the packet, looking for things that hadn’t been in Mrs. Robeson’s article and that Diana hadn’t told her. She found the section on money particularly interesting. Apparently the government covered a lot of Rumon’s basic needs, delivering food in trucks every weekend and paying for utilities, but some people also held jobs in the closest town, Beringold, so that they could get things of higher quality.

The packet explained that a small area of Beringold’s main street had been sectioned off. There, citizens of Rumon could sell a variety of sundries that the community budget had shipped to them. Hannah was relieved to know that not everybody stayed within Rumon’s gates at all times – even if they weren’t allowed to keep their earnings for themselves. Any money they earned was to be given to Diana, who would then organize a vote to decide what the community needed. Everyone was also given a monthly supply of solvens, Rumon’s currency.

There were several pages with information about full moons, but Hannah decided to skip these; she didn’t need to think about that yet. She skimmed through sections about holidays and town meetings and finally stopped at a page about contraband. That was when she read something that made her stomach twist.

_The labeling of items as contraband has been a contentious issue at Rumon over the past few years. Phones, laptops, and other electronic devices are highly restricted, and may only be used in the community’s library building. Most of our citizens come from difficult backgrounds and do not need their feelings of safety compromised by the biases and prejudices of the outside world. The instinct-suppressing medication known as the “Moon Pill” has also been banned at Rumon since April 2012. As current laws stand, any citizen found using such medications will be expelled from Rumon immediately._

Hannah had assumed that it went without saying that she could get Moon Pills at Rumon. She couldn’t think of anyone she knew at home who had gone so much as a month without them except Nicolas, and _he_ didn’t count. Why on earth would they be forbidden? Did the people of Rumon _want_ to feel like they couldn’t control themselves? Did they _want_ to wake up every month with their body scrambled and their minds foggy? Hannah couldn’t imagine that they did.

But Nicolas’ words came back to her, from the day she and Topher and Harry had visited him in prison. _The wolf had gotten what it wanted. It didn’t punish me the way that it usually did… I felt pretty damn great, actually…_

For a split second, Hannah considered running straight back through the gates to Curnow.

She shook her head forcefully. This was where she belonged now. It didn’t matter what the welcome packet said; Hannah had two months’ worth of Moon Pills left, and nobody was going to take them away from her. She hated even those few _moments_ when she lost control – she would not lose herself for even longer. When she ran out, she’d just have to come up with a way to get more.

Still, she felt weird, filling out the forms Diana had given her and marking herself down as a Type One instead of a Type Three.

Hannah thought for a moment, then grabbed the plush duck she had packed. Wincing a little (it had been a present from Harry, after all), she slashed its stomach open with her nail scissors. Within the stuffing, she stowed her bottle of Moon Pills – and then, because she decided that she might as well go the whole hog – her yellow cell phone as well. She placed her iPod, which was about the same size, inside the plastic bag meant for contraband and knotted it tightly. With any luck, the bag would look and feel like she’d followed Diana’s instructions to the letter.

She handed it to Diana that afternoon with what she hoped was a guiltless expression.

“You’ve read everything?” said Diana. “You understand what’s expected of you?”

“Yep,” said Hannah.

“We trust people here,” said Diana, holding her gaze. “And I’m trusting you now.”

Hannah smiled and shook her hand. She would give Diana no reason to doubt her. Everything would be fine.

***

Hannah’s first town meeting was held the next evening. She followed Amelia, Tory, Brenna, and Gwyn to the round building she’d seen earlier, now pearly white under the cover of dusk. Most of the community was already inside, sitting on tall white benches that spanned the circumference of the room. Hannah especially loved the ceiling: it had been painted a bright, shimmering gold. In the center of the room was a podium.

As they waited for the meeting to begin, Hannah was able to get a better look at the Rumon residents she hadn’t met yet. She estimated that there were about three hundred of them. Most seemed to be about Amelia’s age – somewhere between their forties and sixties – although there were also a fair number of older and younger adults. There were a variety of different races and genders represented, but children and teenagers seemed to be lacking. Hannah could only find three other people who looked like they were in their late teens. They had noticed her, too. They watched her for a second, then walked over, squeezing through the gaps between the benches.

There was a serious-looking boy with high cheekbones, a girl with a sleek black ponytail and fashionable glasses, and another girl with short ginger hair. They seemed to be having trouble deciding who would speak first, so Hannah took over.

“I’m Hannah,” she said, grinning at them. “Seventeen, just moved here, and I have no idea what’s going on.”

The boy grinned back. “We can fix that,” he said. “I’m Bram – seventeen, too – well, we all are; we just finished school in the spring. Diana said you’d be working with us. I guess you’ll find out more about that later.”

“It’s mostly just hanging out, so don’t worry,” said the ponytailed girl. “Nothing too difficult. I’m Aria, by the way.”

“I’m Cynthia,” said the other girl. “Well, it’s technically my middle name. My real first name is _Melpomene,_ if you can believe that. I used to _mangle_ it when I was little.”

“My middle name’s Penelope,” said Hannah, looking for something to have in common with at least one of them. “Not everyone can pronounce that, either. Also, she’s the most boring character from mythology ever. She just sits around and makes blankets while her husband gets to have adventures. She never even goes looking for him.”

Talking about her name made her think of her mother, picking out something fanciful to go with plain old Hannah while awaiting the birth of her only daughter. Was that what her parents had wanted? A daughter who did nothing but sit and wait quietly while the world went on without her?

“I think the meeting’s about to start,” said Bram, pointing at the podium, where Diana had finally appeared. “We’ll talk more soon, okay?”

“Great to meet you,” said Cynthia, linking arms with Aria, and Hannah congratulated herself once again on what a truly excellent idea coming here had been.

The meeting itself was extremely dull. Diana dragged the townspeople from one inane subject to another – solven distributions, workday schedules, library policies. The strange thing was that despite all this, Hannah couldn’t spot anyone who looked like they weren’t paying attention. A couple of vague comments about new shop shipments received murmurings from all quarters. When Diana asked for a vote on library fines, every single person except Hannah raised their hand for a “yea” or a “nay.” Even Tory’s eyes were focused on the podium, her expression rapt and expectant. It was as if there was something of vast importance hidden inside Diana’s words that everyone could hear except Hannah.

After what seemed like hours, Diana finally finished.

“I’d like to remind everyone that I’ve made the executive decision to stop discussion on the topic that was brought up last week,” she said. “The last thing we need is yet another issue to divide us – especially considering what happened the last time.”

She paused, and Hannah saw Amelia look down uncomfortably. She wasn’t the only one, either. Diana seemed to have expected this reaction and suddenly looked severe.

“We will act _when_ we are required to act, and no sooner. For now, I forbid those… _people_ to inspire fear in a single one of you. As you leave today, I’d like all of you to reflect on that. We need to remain united. It will do us no good to spread rumors about a subject that causes so much ill will.”

A few people clapped, but Hannah gave up trying to understand what Diana was talking about. She followed her new housemates outside into the crisp December air, and noticed that, despite having been so attentive, each of them looked somewhat relieved to be out of the town hall. She found herself grateful that she was staying with them and not with Rumon’s mayor.

***

Tory woke Hannah up the next morning by jumping onto her bed.

“Mom says come downstairs _right now,”_ she said. “There’s people at the gate. They can’t come in because they aren’t werewolves. But –” She suddenly looked nervous. “They want to talk to you. Mom thinks you should.”

For a moment, Hannah didn’t understand. Then a wave of terrible comprehension washed over her.

Her family had found her at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did we think Hannah would be any less likely to break rules now that she's at Rumon? No, I don't think we did.


	21. Marrock Christmas Market

Hannah had no idea what she was going to say. She barely had time to tug on a pair of jeans before Amelia knocked on the door and told her she’d better get going.

“Diana will turn them away if you don’t,” she said. “No parent deserves that. Just state your case and help them to understand. They’ll get there in the end.”

Hannah knew that if it wasn’t for Amelia’s coaxing, she’d just have stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling until her brain let her go back to sleep. She’d never thought that her parents would figure out where she was so quickly, and she’d definitely never envisioned them driving all the way out _here_ to come after her. She tried to focus on what she would tell them. _They understand me at Rumon_ , she imagined herself saying. _You never even tried._

“Were my brothers with them?” she asked, as they hurried along the winding forest paths.

“I think they told Diana that they wanted to talk to you alone.” Amelia frowned. “Hannah – make sure you do what feels _right_ , okay? We love having you stay with us, but if you decide that you’d rather go home –”

 _“No,”_ said Hannah, so savagely that Amelia started. “I didn’t come all the way here just to turn around and go back. I’m staying.”

Amelia gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. For some reason, that made Hannah feel worse.

They arrived at the iron gate to find Diana drawn up to her tallest and sharpest, saying something very firmly to the people on the other side. For a moment, Hannah told herself that she wouldn’t look – but then she _had_ to look, and she froze.

Her parents were standing just beyond her reach. They were holding hands. Her mother’s face was a pasty kind of gray, and her eidolon had slunk around her shoulders like a shawl. Her father stood rigid, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Diana moved stiffly away from them. “It would be best if you didn’t take more than a few minutes,” she said, looking only at Hannah. “It will be easier for everyone that way.”

She and Amelia went back down the footpath. Hannah watched them go, wondering how bad it would be if she ran after them. Eventually she squared her shoulders and looked dully at the ground.

“Hi,” she said.

Hannah’s parents didn’t say anything back. Instead, her mother took a step forward, reached through the bars of the gate, and held onto Hannah’s wrist. Hannah let her. Pulling away seemed cruel. She had never meant to be cruel.

“We’re sorry we were so hard on you,” said her father at last. “We underestimated how upset you were. You were right; we should have told you the truth from the beginning. We should have explained.”

Hannah swallowed.

“We want you home and safe. When we saw that magazine article on the floor… I never thought you’d do something like this. I never realized it was that bad.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. Her stomach had begun to boil, as if a fire had been lit somewhere inside it. He hadn’t realized – _how_ could he not have realized –

“You could have talked to us anytime you wanted, you know,” he said, even more gently. “We would have listened. We’d have tried to fix it. We certainly wouldn’t have been perfect, but we’d have done everything we could. We love you and your brothers more than anything. If you’ve missed that… then we’ve failed you.”

Hannah’s chest burned and her whole body shook and suddenly she couldn’t do it anymore. In what felt like a final, irreparable act of betrayal, she wrenched her hand out of her mother’s grasp, banging it on the bars of the gate in the process.

“I know,” she managed to say. “But I can’t.”

And before she knew what she was doing, she was running: running as fast as her quavering legs would take her, down the path and through the trees and into the clearing where the domed roof of the town hall was glittering in the early morning sunlight.

She went inside, hoping it would be empty. It was. She climbed onto one of the benches and kept her head in her hands until her eyes accepted that she wasn’t going to let them leak anymore and her body understood that there was nobody around to hurt her.

She told herself that it was only natural that it would take her a while to adjust to Rumon. It was natural that she should miss her parents, even if she hadn’t expected to. It was natural to have experienced a few minutes of panic. At least now she knew. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

The feeling of her mother’s hand on her wrist stayed with her, though. It took several days to fade away.

***

Her parents didn’t return. Amelia said that Diana had spoken to them after Hannah left. Amelia didn’t know what she’d said, but whatever it was, it seemed to have mollified Hannah’s parents enough that they didn’t come back. Hannah didn’t know if she felt relieved or upset that Diana had interfered.

“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” said Brenna, after Hannah had returned to the cabin. “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here, either. My sisters… they still write me letters. Even now, they want me to come live with them.”

“Why didn’t you?” said Hannah, forcibly peeling her mind away from the places it was trying to stick.

“I couldn’t,” said Brenna simply. “I lived with them for many years. They’re much older than I am; they were my guardians when I was a girl. They feel… a certain level of responsibility, I suppose. I love them, but it isn’t for me, to be watched in that way. To be given special consideration.”

 _“Exactly,”_ said Hannah, feeling a sudden warmth spread through her. “That’s – yeah, that’s exactly how I feel. My parents are always – I don’t know, expecting something to _happen_. Making me think about stuff when I don’t want to. Making me talk about stuff when I don’t need to. It’s like they forget that I’m just a person.”

“They don’t understand,” said Brenna. “But at Rumon, we do. That’s the difference. That’s what they can’t give you, even though they want to. My sisters want to very much. But just _wanting_ to understand… doesn’t mean that you can.”

“No,” said Hannah incredulously. “No, it doesn’t.”

Brenna paused. There was a new nervousness behind her eyes that Hannah didn’t understand the source of.

“You… you’re going to be working for me,” she said at last. “I don’t know if Diana told you, but Amelia and I manage the Christmas shop in Beringold together. It’s not a bad job. Not most of the time.”

Hannah decided that the heavy part of the conversation was over. “Sounds a lot better than having to go to school,” she said brightly. “And I’m awesome at putting up tinsel, just so you know. Although I’ve never had a real job before.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Brenna. “Just stay professional and you’ll be fine. Or at least, don’t copy Bram and hang the Christmas lights in the shape of a – well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Did any customers notice?” said Hannah eagerly.

Brenna frowned. “Yes.”

“What happened?”

“You start tomorrow morning,” said Brenna. And Hannah finally had something else to think about.

***

Amelia woke Hannah much earlier than she would have liked. The sun had only just come up over the mountains, and light flooded the room and scorched Hannah’s eyes. She groaned and rolled over, then remembered where she was.

“Happy first day of work,” said Amelia, smiling as Hannah blinked rapidly. “Cinnamon buns are in the kitchen, and you can take a cup of coffee too, if you like. I’ll warn you, though – it’s very strong. Gwyn made it.”

“He was up late with Scarlett again,” said Tory, bouncing in behind her mother. “It happens sometimes. That’s why he needs caffeine so much.”

“That’s Gwyn’s private business.”

“Well, he tells everybody at school, so it can’t be _that_ private.”

“It’s for Gwyn to tell, Tory, not you.”

They left her alone to dress. Hannah hadn’t brought much in the way of professional clothing, but she supposed it wouldn’t matter very much in a shop, so she slipped on a green sweater she’d always found slightly too frilly and a pair of jeans. She came downstairs to find Amelia and Brenna clutching bagels in napkins, ready to leave.

“I won’t be around for most of the day,” Amelia explained as she led the way toward the community van. She dug out two sets of keys – one for the car and one that would allow them to pass through the iron gate. “Brenna and the teenagers manage things on the floor. I deal with the paperwork.”

The van was navy blue and dilapidated. A small number of people were already inside, including Aria, Cynthia, and Bram.

“There are three other shops besides ours,” explained Cynthia, as Hannah slipped into the seat next to her. “There’s a thrift store, a souvenir store, and a place that sells silver jewelry.”

“But they mostly get customers in the summer,” said Aria. “We’re the only shop most people care about, this time of year. Well – tourists, anyway.”

“The townies don’t stop by a lot,” said Bram. “Although a few of them do come in every so often.” He and Aria exchanged a dark look that Hannah didn’t understand.

The drive into Beringold was short, but Hannah’s eyes were glued to the window all the way there. The van rutted down rocky mountain roads, passing stunning, leaf-strewn lookouts as casually as if they were cornfields. Then they turned into Beringold, which was much smaller than Hannah had imagined.

It was, even by Curnow’s standards, hardly a town. Hannah realized with a sinking feeling that there was unlikely to be anything resembling a hospital where she could get more Moon Pills; she would have to look somewhere else. Still, there was something rustically picturesque about all the old-fashioned houses with wide porches, white picket fences, and antique mailboxes. Hannah expected the Rumon businesses to be in the same vein until they reached them.

The shops were located at the end of Beringold’s main street. The other public buildings were nice enough – there was a town hall, several tourist centers, and a community theater. But the Rumon buildings had been decisively separated from them. At the end of the main street, the road veered sharply to the left, and it was there that the van turned into an old, cracked parking lot, which was located next to several shabby storefronts.

The bucolic charm of the main street was gone. Tiles were dangling off rooves, steps had caved in, and the white brick was in bad need of a paint job. Compared to the rest of Beringold, the area looked tacked on; unwelcome. Clearly nobody thought it was necessary to make this part of town appealing to tourists.

“Yeah, I know,” said Amelia, spotting the expression on Hannah’s face. “But the rent’s cheap, and we make it as nice as we can on the inside. Look in the window.”

She pointed toward the shop on the far left, which said _Marrock Christmas Market_ in peeling gold letters. Somebody had arranged Christmas lights so that they twisted over the window in the shape of a bell.

“Aria did that,” said Bram, grinning. “After I –”

“Why don’t we go inside,” said Brenna quickly, and the six of them headed to the door.

The inside resembled every tacky Christmas shop Hannah had ever visited. There was one in Curnow almost exactly like it, complete with over-glittered baubles, advent calendars containing squares of cheap chocolate, and Elf on the Shelf knockoffs that stared numbly out of their boxes. One of the baubles on the tree closest to Hannah was shaped like a pineapple. She looked away and thought of Topher.

Aria, Cynthia, and Bram gathered behind the counter while Hannah watched Brenna and Amelia argue about whether or not to turn on holiday music. Then Amelia announced she was going down to the storage room in the basement, leaving Hannah and the others to tend the empty shop.

For a long time, nobody came in. Cynthia disappeared into the back and returned with a deck of cards and several fold-out chairs – enough for everyone except Brenna, who was absorbed in organizing wrapping paper. There seemed to be nothing of substance for any of them to do, and Hannah couldn’t help feeling puzzled.

“Are we going to have to hide the chairs when Amelia comes back up?” she said.

Bram snorted. “Nah. Nobody cares what we do. As long as the customers can still come in and gawk at us, everyone’s happy.”

“Gawk at us?”

“Oh yes,” said Aria. “They’re friendly, mostly – the tourists are, I mean – but they don’t really come here to buy ornaments. They come to see us, more than anything else.”

“You know, like _ooh, look at the werewolf kids, are they normal, do they act like us, let’s get one of their Christmas ornaments so we can hang it on our tree and tell everyone where we got it,_ ” said Cynthia in a disdainful voice. “They don’t care that there’s nothing to _see_.”

“I’m sure they don’t all think like that,” said Aria hurriedly. “I’m sure some of them do want Christmas ornaments.”

But Hannah put herself firmly on Cynthia’s side when their first customer entered the store. She was an older woman, with curly platinum hair that was certainly dyed and unquestionably expensive. She was wearing a pantsuit of a kind Hannah had thought only politicians wore, and her eyebrows were raised from the first.

“Good morning,” said Aria politely.

Hannah watched Brenna’s gaze shift to the woman, then back to the place where she was arranging collectible Santas. It seemed that talking to customers was something she left to the teenagers.

“I’m in the right place, aren’t I?” said the woman, a little anxiously. “This is the Christmas shop? Run by the Rumon people?” Her voice dropped. “By the – _werewolves?”_

 _“So I hear,”_ said Hannah, in an equally dramatic whisper.

It was almost cartoonlike, how much her eyes widened. “ _Wonderful_ ,” she said, making no effort to hide the way she had begun to look each of them intensely up and down. “My guidebook tells me you have one-of-a-kind moonstone ornaments here – the same kind you use in your sacred moon rituals. Could you point me towards those? I have a niece who would just _love_ to have one.”

“Certainly,” said Cynthia crisply. “Come this way, please.”

She ducked out from behind the counter. Hannah swung around and gave Bram and Aria an accusing look, not caring whether the woman heard or not.

“ _Moon rituals?_ What the _hell_ –”

“They can believe whatever they want,” said Bram, with a twisted smile. “Especially if it means they buy more stuff.”

“A lot of people outside think we’re this bizarre, moon-worshiping cult,” explained Aria. “Not the townies… although when it comes to what _they_ think, I honestly wish they did. But with the tourists, it doesn’t matter what you say. They didn’t come here to find out we’re just the same as they are. You can tell them the truth all you want, but they’re not going to listen. Cynthia’s tried.”

“It doesn’t even make sense,” said Hannah. “I mean, if there’s anything we _wouldn’t_ be worshiping, it would be the moon, right? Cursing, maybe. Swearing at, definitely.”

She expected a laugh, but both Bram and Aria looked back at her with blank expressions. Hannah remembered what Diana had said to her when she’d first arrived, about how being a werewolf was a gift, not a curse. Her words had been so absurd that Hannah had forgotten them. She hadn’t imagined that anyone else at Rumon might think the same way.

Hannah felt a little cool towards Aria and Bram after that, and Cynthia too, by default. But she didn’t let herself show it, and after pretending long enough, she was able to forgive them. After all, they had accepted her into their group without question or suspicion. It wasn’t their fault that they had been raised to think transforming was something other than the wretched and soul-crushing experience Hannah knew it to be.

***

The teenagers’ workday ended at lunchtime, and Cynthia drove the van back to Rumon, where it would be retrieved by the people working the afternoon shift. Hannah was glad. There were things niggling at the back of her mind that would have been difficult not to think about, given several more hours sitting inside a store. Even now, heading into her room at Amelia’s, it was hard not to let a few of them drift to the forefront.

The biggest thought, and the one that was growing too fast to avoid, was what on earth she thought she was _doing_. It was all too clear that Rumon was nothing like she’d hoped it would be. She wasn’t even sure she _knew_ what she had hoped it would be. But she definitely hadn’t expected to be selling cheap Christmas décor in a place where people came in specifically to stare at her. She hadn’t dreamed that there would be people who didn’t hate transformations. And she had never expected Moon Pills to be banned.

 _Why don’t you leave, then?_ whispered the voice she had been trying to silence all morning. _Mrs. Robeson’s article said that for six months, you can leave any time you want. Do you really want to spend your life here? Working in a dinky little shop, away from everyone who cares about you? Is getting away from everything really worth this?_

Hannah put her head under her covers. _Shh_ , she ordered her brain. Of course it was worth it.

She had made up her mind on the night she’d run away. She couldn’t live the way she had in Curnow anymore. She would go insane; would tear her hair out and scream for a thousand years. Rumon, with all its faults, was full of people who _understood_ her. Nobody would force her into a hospital here. Nobody would monitor the coming and going of her colors or look at her curiously when supernatural topics came up in conversation. She wouldn’t have to miss anything because of a full moon. She wouldn’t be the source of anyone’s pity.

She would get over missing home _eventually_ , she told herself. She would lose the image of her parents’ faces at the gate. She would make herself a new family.

***

Hannah fell asleep easily, but her dreams were restless and angry, and she woke up at four with her heart thudding. Without thinking about what she was doing, she got up, yanked her phone out of Harry’s plush duck, and tugged on a hoodie and her boots. The window in this bedroom was the easiest one she had slipped out of yet. She remembered the clearing she’d spotted behind the cabins and headed there at a run.

Hannah squeezed herself between two trees, sat on a damp stump, and dialed the number she knew by heart. She listened to the tone, crossing her fingers tightly. It rang three times before someone picked up.

_“Hannah?”_

“Sorry if I woke you up,” she said. “I’m not supposed to have my phone. I’m breaking official Rumon law for you, Topher Sewell.”

She meant the last sentence to come out as a joke, but it didn’t, quite. Topher was silent.

“I just… I wanted to see if you were mad at me. For coming here. And not telling you. And stuff. Because… I really don’t want you to be.”

Topher seemed to take a while to decide what to say.

“I’m not mad.”

“So – so we’re good?” Hannah didn’t do a very good job of hiding the relief in her voice. “We’re still friends? You can come visit, you know. You and Harry. Anyone can, if they’re a werewolf.”

“Hannah,” said Topher slowly. “Just because I’m not mad doesn’t mean I’m not – I mean, just _think_ for a second, okay? You run away. You don’t tell anyone about it. You text me, like, two sentences; freak out your parents; get the police involved; and now you call me up at four in the morning. I don’t know how to take that. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You… could be happy to hear from me?”

“I am! Of course I am! But I don’t _understand_ , Han. Normally you care about people. You can be – well, you can be _you_ sometimes, but you care about people. You put all this effort into making them happy – even if it seems like it’s totally impossible. This time…”

“What do you mean, I can be _me_ sometimes? Do you want me to hang up?”

“Hannah, do you really not care that your parents are suffering? I’ve _seen_ them – they don’t look good. And your younger brothers – what do they think? And Harry – he _never_ stops talking about you; I’ve never seen him so frazzled. And Rose and David get all quiet whenever I try to bring you up, and –” He took a sharp inward breath. “Look. I don’t _get_ it. It’s not you. You don’t _do_ this. Not unless –”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you’re scared,” said Topher, in a way that made Hannah feel like he was talking mostly to himself. “Unless something happened to make you feel like… like you aren’t in control.”

Hannah didn’t know what to say.

“It was the full moon right before you left,” Topher continued. “So if something happened… maybe it was the Moon Pills. Was that it, Han? Did they stop working again?”

Hannah tried to speak around the lump in her throat, but she didn’t know how.

“If they did… then your parents probably called Rose and David; they probably started figuring out hospital stuff again. And you didn’t want to do it. You just…” He paused again. “You just wanted to be… you.”

“I’m not the wolf,” Hannah whispered. “I’m not.”

“I know.”

They sat quietly for a while – Topher at home, tucked up in his bed, and Hannah in the clearing, the waning moon above her, the frosty wind whistling through her hair. Neither of them said anything. But if Hannah had, she knew that Topher would have heard her, and that was enough to make her want to stay on the phone forever.

She didn’t tell him about Rumon and Diana and the tourists in the shop. She just wanted him to herself.

It ended, as she knew it had to, after an hour or so. Topher needed to sleep, and she had to let him go. She slipped her phone back into her sweatshirt and prepared to creep back through her window.

She was almost there when she realized she was being watched.

Gwyn was sitting on the front steps of the cabin. His hands were in his lap, and Scarlett was swirling around his fingertips. He gave Hannah a casual wave when she looked back at him, then gestured for her to join him on the steps.

“Taking a little nighttime walk?” he said.

Hannah winced. She hoped he hadn’t seen her phone. “More or less,” she said cautiously. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You can go through the door, you know. I do it all the time.”

“I didn’t want to wake anyone up.” Hannah glanced back at him, wondering if he was going to tell anyone.

“I’m lucky if I get even a few hours of sleep, most of the time. Scarlett doesn’t care at all how much I sleep when the sun’s out – I nap every day after school finishes. But it’s another story at night.”

Hannah sat down a few feet away from him. Her eyes followed Scarlett’s movements; the eidolon was now winding around Gwyn’s pale wrists. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel to try to sleep knowing that a creature like that was hovering just beyond your reach.

“Why’d you name her?” she said. “Scarlett, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Gwyn. “I guess I thought it would make her more interesting. I noticed she bothered me less if I treated her more like a troublesome pet than something to be feared. She’s sort of beautiful, isn’t she, in her own way?”

Hannah didn’t think so.

“How long have you had her?”

For the first time, Gwyn looked less than cheerful. “Years. Since before I came to Rumon – only a few weeks before, actually. I wasn’t in a good place. I’d only just left Wales… I went to Curnow for the hospital, and my girlfriend came along. I’d had some mild success with my portraits, so my career was portable, you see.”

Hannah pretended that Curnow Hospital meant absolutely nothing to her and frowned at him. “You didn’t like it there?”

“It wasn’t that,” said Gwyn. “It was… well, you see, I’d only been bitten a few years before. It was my last year at university, and I’d done a summer abroad in the south of France… and I was extraordinarily unlucky. I was sure my girlfriend would leave me when I told her what had happened – but she didn’t. She changed her course of study, in fact; went from standard medical training into lycanthropy care. And I suppose I felt guilty. It sounds silly now, of course, but I believed at the time she’d only done it because she felt sorry for me.”

“And then Scarlett showed up?” said Hannah quietly.

“And then Scarlett showed up,” said Gwyn.

For a few minutes, they sat like that, shivering on the steps, saying nothing. Then Gwyn opened the door, and the two of them walked back into the warmth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out retail work's boring even when it's run by werewolves.
> 
> At the time I wrote this, I was working at a Scottish supply shop in a tourist town, mostly frequented by rich middle-aged people (and once, memorably, a man with a pistol in his pocket who wanted to be fitted for a kilt. I hid in the back room. I don't like guns.) I think some of my feelings about it may have leaked into Hannah's experience.


	22. Girls with Secrets

Tory began to spend more and more time in Hannah’s room. She had apparently been serious when she had said that she wanted them to be like sisters – and, thanks to her bookish habits, she had _very_ specific ideas about what sisters were supposed to do. She arrived at Hannah’s door one evening with a bucket of nail polish and a book on hair braiding, and another night, she announced that she would be trying on all of Hannah’s clothes.

To her surprise, Hannah found that she didn’t mind. She’d always wondered what it would be like to have a sister, and there was something endearing about how excited Tory was to have her in the house. Still, Tory’s constant presence began to be a problem as they moved closer to the full moon. Sometimes there were close calls.

“Is that some kind of medicine?” said Tory, sidling in through Hannah’s door. “Do you have a headache or something?”

“Vitamins,” said Hannah quickly, shoving the bottle out of sight.

“Are they the gummy kind?” said Tory enthusiastically. “Can I have one?”

“No. They’re – they’re only for adults. They’d make you sick.”

“You’re not an adult.”

“I am here. According to Diana.”

Tory gave Hannah a skeptical glance. “You _can’t_ be. Adults are boring. You aren’t.”

“Well, thanks,” said Hannah with some surprise. “But Diana’s the authority around here. We have to believe what she says, right?”

Tory climbed onto Hannah’s bed and settled herself against the pillows. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said, in a whisper so quiet that even Hannah had to strain to hear her, “but I don’t like Diana very much.”

Hannah almost threw her arms around Tory in gratefulness for being the first person to say what she had felt from her first day at Rumon, but she knew she couldn’t be that open. She merely raised her eyebrows.

“Really? Why not?”

Tory curled her arms around her knees. “Just reasons,” she said.

“Reasons,” said Hannah, drumming her fingers against her chin. “Okay. Reasons are good.”

Tory watched Hannah for a moment. Then she said, “My dad.”

“Your dad?” said Hannah, scouring her mind for any mention of Tory’s father. Nothing surfaced. “He doesn’t live at Rumon, does he?”

Tory shook her head. “He had to leave when I was eight. Diana made him.”

_“What?”_

Questions exploded inside Hannah’s head. She couldn’t have stopped them from bursting out of her if she’d tried.

“She _made_ him? How could she make him?”

“He broke the rules,” said Tory softly. “He wanted us to come with him, but Mom said it wouldn’t be safe. Then they had a big fight.” She looked down. “I was on his side, not Mom’s. But nobody else was.”

“That’s… that’s horrible,” said Hannah, fresh dislike for Diana coursing through her.

Tory nodded, tightening her grip around her knees.

“Couldn’t you visit him?” said Hannah, remembering the official rules about when people could leave. “In the days after the full moon?”

“Mom says no. Because it was really bad for her when she lived on the outside. People tried to attack her on the street one time. She’s scared the same thing’s going to happen to me.”

“Why would it?” said Hannah, baffled. “You’re not a werewolf.”

“I am _too_. You’re at Rumon, remember?”

“But doesn’t that mean –” Things weren’t adding up. “Did Amelia adopt you?”

Tory’s expression intensified. “No. I got bitten when I was a baby. Same as everyone else.”

She had been bitten when she was… but no; that couldn’t be right; even Rumon wouldn’t mandate something like _that_ – would it? Hannah’s chest tightened. “You… what?”

“You can’t live in Rumon if you’re not a werewolf,” said Tory in a patient tone. “So everybody bites their babies, because otherwise you’d have to give it up to the outside. Mom’s friend Sabine – she’s my godmother – bit me when I was a couple weeks old.”

Hannah could only gawk at her. She had never imagined this. Mrs. Robeson certainly hadn’t mentioned it in her article. It seemed like the most obvious infraction of basic human rights – but then again, maybe at Rumon, people didn’t consider themselves human at all. Or maybe they had become used to not having rights.

It took enormous effort, but Hannah managed to prevent herself from dropping everything, running off, and screaming herself hoarse at Amelia and Diana and whoever this Sabine person was. No. Hannah wasn’t going to do that, because Rumon was her new home.

Rumon was her salvation from the pity and lies she’d had to live with since the day she was bitten. Rumon was her escape from the paranoia of her parents, from Rose and David’s poking and prodding, from Moon Pills that didn’t work when they were supposed to. Rumon’s laws might seem terrible now, but they wouldn’t once she adjusted to them – and she _would_ adjust to them. She would.

She was not going to go back.

Tory pulled back her sleeve so that Hannah could see the tiny scar that had changed her life forever. It had been done very neatly – it looked more like a raised freckle than anything else. But that didn’t change what it was. It didn’t make Hannah’s anger any less scorching.

“Could you give me some time alone, Tory?” she said. “I… I’m really tired.”

She managed to hold her breath until she heard Tory’s feet padding back across the hallway.

Then she couldn’t take it anymore.

She hoped nobody heard her as she slammed her fists into her pillow, as she nearly choked on the duvet she used to muffle the curses that came spewing from her mouth. She hit the pillow again and again and again and again. She planted her face squarely in the middle of it. She might have sobbed if she’d been the kind of person who did.

She was just going to have to give herself time.

The mountains turned purple in the dusk, and the moon continued to wax.

***

If it weren’t for her burgeoning friendship with Aria, Bram, and Cynthia, Hannah might have crept back to the clearing and called her parents in a moment of weakness. As it was, she was calling Topher almost every day. But her time working at the store was rapidly becoming more interesting – and that changed everything.

After three weeks at Rumon, Hannah felt she had really become part of the group. She spent every afternoon at one of her new friends’ cabins, laughing until her stomach hurt. She listened to Aria and Cynthia gossip, told her own stories about life at Amelia’s house, and drank hard cider Bram had stolen from his father’s not-so-secret supply.

Hannah never told them anything personal, but she learned a lot about the rest of them. Aria hadn’t been bitten until she was eight, when her werewolf mother had been evicted from her Minneapolis apartment and decided enough was enough. Bram and his father had been bitten at the same time, when Bram was only four, and they had come to Rumon shortly thereafter.

Cynthia, on the other hand, was a fifth-generation Rumon citizen on both sides. She told fascinating stories about what it had been like before Diana took over. The community seemed to have been much less organized – they hadn’t had shops in Beringold, for example – and fights broke out frequently, probably because there had been far fewer rules.

At Hannah’s recommendation (and because she didn’t think she could bear sitting through another game of cards), they had also started a kind of comedy game, which had begun as a joke and evolved into sheepish attempts at actual stand-up. They practiced every time customers weren’t in the store and were generally terrible. But Brenna was shockingly good.

“I used to write plays with my sisters,” she said, shrugging. She had just done a flawless impression of Amelia from that morning, when she had done her best to make Hannah eat two additional breakfasts after her first one. Aria, Bram, and Cynthia, who all knew Amelia well, were in hysterics.

“Why didn’t you become an actress, then?” Bram demanded. He had just tried to mimic Diana, but had ended up looking more like he had a peanut stuck up his nose.

“Better things to do,” said Brenna vaguely.

For the second time, Hannah noticed anxiety cross her face in a situation when there was no reason why it should have.

But before Hannah could ask if she was all right, she heard three sets of heavy footsteps outside the door – and their heaviness seemed deliberate, as though the people responsible knew that the workers inside had better ears than most. Clumsy hands shoved the door open, revealing three large men Hannah had never seen before. A fourth man, whose footfalls had been soft enough for Hannah to have missed, hung nervously in the doorframe.

Everyone’s heads turned. Hannah noticed that Bram had gripped the edge of the counter, and Aria had gone quite pale. Cynthia moved closer to Brenna, who was watching the group with a hard expression.

Hannah guessed that they had met these men before. The only thing she could tell for sure was that they did not like them – were even, she felt certain, more than a little afraid of them.

The largest man – clearly the ringleader – stepped forward. He looked straight at Brenna when he spoke, as if there was nobody else in the room.

“So you’re still here?”

The question was simple enough, but one glance at his twitching jaw convinced Hannah that something was very wrong. Two of the other men stepped further forward. The man in the doorway continued to linger behind them.

“We did warn you,” said the first man seriously.

Nobody responded, so Hannah decided she would take the task on herself. _Somebody_ had to stand up to him. And she was too new to have anything to fear.

So she gave him the most derisive look she could manage. “You _warned_ her? About what?”

Aria stared at Hannah with frightened eyes, but it didn’t seem to matter; the man merely acted as though Hannah hadn’t spoken.

“We told you what we would do if you didn’t listen,” he said. “And yet you had the nerve to keep coming back here. After all that you’ve done.”

He gestured to the man standing behind him, who still seemed to be trying to blend into the doorway. Brenna’s expression darkened, but she remained quiet.

Then, in one fluid movement – almost as though they could read each other’s minds – the three frontmost men walked further into the store until they were standing right up against the counter, leaving the fourth man to glance uncertainly back at them. One of them stood only inches away from Hannah – so close that she could see each of the coarse hairs growing out of his chin. He smelled awful, like cigarette smoke hovering atop a pool of sweat.

“We’re here to give you one final warning,” said the first man. “We’re reasonable people.”

But he looked the opposite of reasonable: his eyes were like a cat’s, slits of cold anger; his jaw was still twitching.

“We can forgive and forget all the other times we spoke and your people did nothing,” he said. “That’s the deal we’re willing to make. But in exchange, you do the right thing. You keep away from town. You creatures stay with your own kind. You leave us alone. You don’t give us reasons to set eyes on you – not ever again.”

“Are you _threatening_ us?” said Hannah incredulously.

Once again, all three men ignored her, and her coworkers flinched.

“How you can even keep showing your _faces_ here is beyond me,” said the man who was standing by Hannah. He fingered something in his pocket that looked horribly like the outline of a pistol. “You have one month to get the hell out – you listen to what Drexler just told you. If you ignore us again, you’re in for it – and that’s not an exaggeration. You know who we are. You know the influence we have. You know the rest of the town is on our side.”

“And you know that Carew back there is with us.” The third man motioned to the man who was still frozen behind him. “After what you people did to his daughter! You should be grateful he isn’t spitting in your _faces_.”

“Lock yourselves up behind that iron gate,” snarled the second man. “Lock yourselves away like you used to, and we’ll leave you alone.”

Brenna took a rattly breath and finally spoke. “We didn’t hurt that little girl. That man wasn’t one of us.”

“You did hurt her.” Drexler moved closer to her, so that their faces were only inches apart. “Little Louisa Carew, only eight years old. Could’ve been safe from that twisted beast if you’d just locked him behind the gate where he belonged. No, the time for apologies is over. You go back there, Brenna – you go back, and you tell _her_ that we’re done. Or else we’re taking action. And it won’t be pretty.”

“Please,” said Carew abruptly. His voice was hoarse. “You don’t – you don’t belong here. The suffering you’ve put my daughter through – the horrors she has to experience – every _month_ –”

“We told you she could stay with us,” said Cynthia suddenly. “She belongs at Rumon now. And they’re not _horrors._ Just because our reality is different from _yours_ –”

Hannah clenched her teeth. The last thing she needed was a reminder of her new friends’ deluded beliefs. She opened her mouth to interject, but Carew acted first, taking several wide steps forward so that he was finally level with Drexler and the rest.

“We will never give Louisa to you,” he said, with far more force than his weedy frame seemed capable of. “She belongs with us. With her parents. And we – all of us, the whole town – we’re going to make you pay.”

Drexler and the others nodded. The man with the pistol did something to it that made it click menacingly, and Hannah jumped backward.

“You’ve been warned,” said Drexler. “For the last time.”

Then he and the others left the shop, as smoothly and suddenly as they’d arrived.

There was a long silence after their departure. Aria was shaking; Cynthia and Bram had sat her down and were speaking to her in soothing tones. Brenna was gazing at the display of advent calendars without really seeing them. Hannah, on the other hand, was dying of curiosity.

“What was _that_ about? Who _were_ those people? Why didn’t we _do_ something?”

“Townies,” said Bram heavily. “They come by every so often. We hadn’t seen them for a few weeks. I guess I’d hoped they’d decided to leave us alone. Stupid of me.”

“Drexler’s kind of the spokesperson of everyone who hates us,” said Cynthia. “He’s the tall one – the one who talked the most. The one with the pistol is Forgan, and the other one is Bolling. They’re all awful. Forgan pinned Aria up against a wall the last time… said he’d give her a black eye and worse if we didn’t close the shops. He didn’t… but only because Drexler told him not to.”

Hannah frowned. “But don’t they get that we’re _supposed_ to be in Beringold? The handbook said that Diana made an agreement with the mayor.”

Bram shook his head. “Most people in town hated the mayor for that. That’s why he wasn’t reelected – they think Diana had something over him. The townies think we should go back to how it used to be. When we weren’t able to support ourselves.”

“I was really little back then, but I remember what it was like,” said Cynthia. “We never had fresh food, and sometimes we didn’t have enough. Our clothes didn’t fit. One year I didn’t have a coat.”

“And who’s this Louisa kid?” said Hannah. “She got bitten?”

The whole group looked embarrassed. Cynthia sighed.

“It wasn’t our fault,” she said. “There was this guy, a couple of years ago… Philip something… he came to Rumon, and we let him stay for a while… but he wasn’t really quite… _right.”_

“He was only with us for a few months,” said Bram. “We almost always let people in at the beginning – there’re people at Rumon with criminal convictions, sketchy pasts, all kinds of stuff. But this guy was in a class of his own.”

“He kept picking all the hair off his body because he thought it would stop the wolf from getting in,” said Cynthia. “And he’d go around biting random people, because I guess he couldn’t tell when he was the wolf and when he wasn’t. We didn’t have the resources to help him. We had to let him go. But he was really angry at us, and he waited around town until… well…”

“He bit a kid so that Rumon would get the blame?” said Hannah, stunned.

“There was something wrong with him,” said Cynthia, as if that dismissed it. “And it’s not like it was a tragedy or anything. Nobody _died_. The kid gets to be one of us now; she’ll come to appreciate it someday, just like you did. But of course, Beringold wasn’t happy. And then these goons started showing up.”

Something about Cynthia’s words seemed to awaken Brenna from her stupor. She blinked a little, then rapidly turned stern and stiff-lipped.

“Diana has told us over and over again not to take them seriously, Cynthia,” she said. “Anyone who tries to disrupt our shops will have our lawyers to contend with. I’ll have a chat with Diana this evening about what happened, and she’ll figure this out. We’re _all_ perfectly safe.”

That was enough to quiet Cynthia and Bram, but Hannah’s mind was still buzzing as they headed for the van. She’d have been angry if she was Louisa Carew’s father, too – he had an _obligation_ to be angry; it was his daughter who had been bitten. But Drexler… she could still vividly picture that catlike way he had looked at Brenna, had looked at all of them… and had Forgan really tried to beat up on sweet, kind-faced Aria?

***

Brenna didn’t let Hannah go straight to Bram’s house that afternoon. She stopped her as she was heading out the door, her mouth still creased with worry.

Hannah turned around. For the umpteenth time, she wondered what was going on in Brenna’s head to cause her to look like that.

“Is it about those men?” she said. “Cynthia and Bram explained everything. They’re gross, but I’m not _scared_ or anything.”

“It’s not,” said Brenna. “Well… not really. I just want you to remember that these things are complicated – more complicated than Cynthia and Bram realize. Rumon has been around for a very long time. In the old days, the gate wasn’t as strong. Sometimes there were… incidents. So there’s always been a tension between us and the townspeople. They inherited it from their ancestors.”

“They didn’t have to.”

Brenna gave a faint smile. “In most places, life is better for us than it’s ever been before. But in Beringold… and some places up north, too, near the forests… Amelia tells me you’re originally from Wisconsin?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I lived up there too for a while, and it could be hard sometimes. It’s better now, but still not as easy as the rest of the country. And Beringold is the same. A mini-north, in a lot of ways.”

Hannah had felt grateful to Brenna when she’d spoken to her after her parents left, but there were still places she didn’t want to go; things she didn’t want to think about. She turned toward the door.

“Hannah?”

She frowned back at Brenna.

“Just… take care of yourself, okay?”

“Of course I will,” said Hannah, slightly nettled. After all, she always had.

***

The December full moon was due to take place only a few days before Christmas. Naturally, not everybody at Rumon celebrated the holiday, but everyone at Amelia’s did, and the house was soon covered in paper snowflakes and softly flickering colored lights (though exactly zero of the things they used came from the Marrock Christmas Market). Hannah had an excellent time decorating the tree with Amelia, Tory, Brenna, and Gwyn, who replaced his coffee with eggnog and began to sing “The Little Drummer Boy” in a surprisingly rich bass voice, Scarlett trailing behind him.

Hannah realized that the time had come to read the part of her welcome packet that she had skipped, the part called “The Rumon Full Moon Protocol” like it was some kind of – some kind dignified monthly _tea party._ She tried to comfort herself with the thought that Aria and Cynthia and Bram had all experienced it countless times. It would be something to get through, that was all. Like it always was.

She reread the basics:

_The Rumon Full Moon Protocol_

_As a full-time citizen, you will be expected to adhere to every part of the Rumon system. Only by fully cooperating with each member of our community can we hope to avoid the home and property damage that was once synonymous with this part of the moon cycle._

_All transformations take place in the forest just behind the residential area. It is fenced off from both the outside world and the rest of the Rumon grounds. At thirty minutes to moonrise, the gate will be unlocked. Type Threes enter first, followed by Type Twos and then Type Ones. We depend upon Type Ones to help calm Type Threes while in transformation if needed._

_Residents are reminded that a strict ban on the “Moon Pill” has been in place since April 2012. Anyone found to be smuggling these or similar substances will be expelled from the community immediately._

Hannah tossed the welcome packet contemptuously into a corner of the room.

The household began to prepare a full day early. They closed the shop and locked the doors, ensuring that nobody could enter until they reopened the following week. Later, Diana and several others went into Beringold to buy dinner, which they distributed to every family in vast quantities.

They ate nothing but duck and pork and roast chicken that night, and the leftovers were packed away for the next day, when none of them would want to cook. Hannah had never been able to eat anything much besides meat before the full moon, though she’d always made a valiant effort not to show it – she knew how much _that_ would have freaked her mother out. But here, she could do what she liked. It was the first time her strange cravings had ever been totally satisfied, and she felt almost dizzy with how much better it made her feel to have a full stomach.

There was nothing anyone could do to make the morning any better, though. Hannah spent most of it alone in her room with a pounding headache. There was no box set to watch this time, and no Tom or Andrew to while away the afternoon with. She was in the process of rearranging her pillows – trying in vain to make her head feel slightly better – when Tory came into the room. She immediately hopped up next to Hannah.

“You have your own bed,” said Hannah, groaning. “Sleep there.”

“I don’t want to.” Tory snuggled into the blankets. “Sisters spend full moons together.”

Hannah clutched at her head, but she didn’t have the energy to force Tory out. She sighed and made room.

“Mom says you’re a Type One,” said Tory. “Is that true?”

Hannah’s eyes flicked to the plush duck that was sitting only inches out of Tory’s reach. “Yes,” she said. “How about you?”

“Three,” said Tory glumly. “So I never remember anything. And I always wake up really cold with leaves all over myself. Will you look out for me?”

Hannah looked at her. She really was very small. The waxing moon had made her much paler than she usually was. Her hands were trembling a little, but she didn’t seem to be in pain. Not yet.

“Of course,” said Hannah. “Full moons aren’t much fun, are they?”

Tory shook her head, fully aware that this was a controversial stance to take. “It hurts. And I don’t like – I don’t like not remembering. I don’t like it when it –”

She made a gesture above her head, one that most people wouldn’t have understood, but Hannah did. Tory was describing the feeling of the wolf’s descent into her mind – the white-hot shock of having everything that she was taken over by something _other_ , something wrong.

Hannah wrapped an arm around Tory’s shoulder, suddenly as furious as she had been during the last time they had spoken like this – it was _unthinkable,_ what had been done to her. A dangerous idea glimmered in the back of Hannah’s head. She sat up straighter.

“Tory,” she said. “If you swear never to tell anyone else, I’ll show you something. It might even help you a little bit. But you have to promise.”

Tory’s eyes went round, and she nodded. Hannah could only imagine that she was thinking of all the books she’d read. Books about girls with secrets.

Banishing all doubt from her mind, she forced a smile, reached for the stuffed duck, and pulled out the bottle of Moon Pills. She unscrewed the cap and held it out for Tory to examine.

“These can’t help you today, because you haven’t been taking them for the last couple weeks. But next month, if you want, I’ll give you some. And if you take one now… you might be able to remember a little of tonight.”

She tipped a pill into the palm of her hand and held it out to Tory. But Tory didn’t take it. Her eyes had gone from round to enormous, and she shrank back, away from Hannah.

“You don’t have to try it if you don’t want to,” said Hannah quickly. “I just thought –”

“Those are Moon Pills,” whispered Tory. “My dad had them. When I was seven. When they made him leave.”

“He – _oh.”_ Hannah dropped the pill back into the bottle, chastising herself for being so stupid. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have –”

“I want to,” said Tory breathlessly. “It’s just –”

“They wouldn’t kick a kid out,” said Hannah. “Even if they caught you, I’m sure they’d understand.”

Tory sat up. Her hair was a mess, and her face was paler than ever, but Hannah could see the cogs turning in her head, and she suddenly looked resolute.

“No,” she said. “They wouldn’t. But –”

“But what?”

“I’ll do it,” said Tory, with a determined tilt of her chin. “Not now – but next month. I want to. For my dad.”

Far too late, a flood of misgivings arose in Hannah’s head. Tory was only twelve; she was bound to tell someone, wasn’t she? And if she did – and if that person told Diana – Hannah would be banished from Rumon. And she still had no idea how she was going to restock her supply. How on earth was she going to get enough Moon Pills for _both_ of them in the months to come?

Hannah shook these thoughts away. If she’d learned anything from her family’s evasiveness, it was that sometimes you just had to do what was right – jump now, doubt later. And Hannah had grown up with Moon Pills; had had them since she was eleven. Tory had been at the mercy of the wolf her whole life.

“Okay,” she said. “You can come see me every morning after the new moon. But you have to keep it _absolutely secret_ , okay? You can’t tell your friends. You can’t tell Brenna or Gwyn. You can’t even tell your mom.”

“I know not to tell my mom,” said Tory, looking at her so earnestly that Hannah couldn’t regret her decision. “Believe me.”

Hannah put the Moon Pills back inside the duck and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure how Tory was still so wide awake. Maybe people bitten as babies adjusted more easily. Or maybe Tory’s energy was so boundless that even full moons couldn’t affect it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finding I have fewer things to say in the "notes" section as the plot starts to resolve itself. But I'm excited that we're finally getting to know Tory properly (I love Tory). Her bookishness is more or less based on my bookishness when I was that age. I think new books may be tricky to get at Rumon, which would mean she rereads everything she has a dozen times over.


	23. The Party Line

Night fell too fast. It seemed that one minute, Hannah was curled in a warm ball inside the burrito shell of her blankets, and the next, Amelia was telling the Type Threes that it was time to leave. Since that meant everyone in the household except Amelia and – as far as anyone knew – Hannah herself, the air was soon full of the sound of moving feet, and Hannah’s hyper-sensitive ears gave her no choice but to wake up.

Several minutes later, Amelia knocked on her door. Hannah said little on the way to the woods. Her body was furious with her even for moving, let alone leaving her bed, and the last thing she wanted to do was spend the night in a cold forest. She hugged her hoodie to her, feeling woozy and more than a little bit angry.

Amelia headed into the trees, but not before introducing Hannah to Sabine, a round-faced German woman, who was standing among the other Type Ones. Hannah remembered right away that it was Sabine who had bitten Tory, but there was no way to express her feelings on the matter without exerting herself, so she just stared out at the trees, her arms crossed in front of her. It only made things worse that Sabine kept trying to be helpful.

“The handbook makes this sound complicated,” she said, “but there’s no need to fret. Just take care of yourself, and if you can help any of the Type Threes, do your part. But don’t feel bad if you just end up hunkering down for the night. That’s normally what I do.”

“How exactly are we supposed to help the Type Threes?” muttered Hannah, shuddering against the chill.

“Well, there’s only so much you can do,” said Sabine. “Sometimes, two Type Threes will end up fighting. If you can distract one long enough for the other to get away, you’ve done your good deed for the night. Don’t worry.”

“Right,” said Hannah, trying and failing to imagine herself as an intermediary between two angry Type Threes. “I’ll try not to.”

Then Sabine opened the gate, and the Type Ones stepped inside.

Hannah gingerly walked through, looking between the trees for signs of Tory. There was no path, so she was forced to weave around tree trunks and brambles, dead leaves crunching underfoot with every step. In the blue glow of the late twilight, she saw Gwyn, Scarlett twined around one shoulder; he called out to her and waved. Brenna was standing against an ancient-looking oak tree; she gazed right past Hannah as she walked by. Finally, after an arduous ten minutes, Hannah spotted Tory, who had collapsed on a tree stump with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Hey, sis,” said Hannah.

Tory responded with a hug that almost squashed the air out of Hannah’s lungs. “I thought you weren’t coming!”

“Of course I came.” Hannah glanced at the sky. She couldn’t get over how strange it felt to be outside, unencumbered by doors or windows, when the moon was this high up.

“I think we have about five minutes,” said Tory.

“Less,” said Hannah. It was in every cell of her body, drowning her in moonlight, suffocating her under the stars. It wanted to eat her alive.

She moved so that she was positioned behind an elm tree, where she at least had the illusion of privacy. She knew that once the transformation began, nobody would be able to concentrate on anything but their own pain, but still, she didn’t want to be seen.

An image of her warm Curnow bedroom, and her box sets of old movies, and the comfortable set of pillows that her family always laid out for her, floated into her head.

She held on to it a second too long.

The transformation took its course. Through her blindness, Hannah could make out the sound of Tory whimpering behind her.

And then there were wolves, and they were everywhere.

Hannah knew immediately that she had no power to stop them from doing anything they wanted to do. The vast majority of the wolves – Twos, Threes, Hannah didn’t know – were running in groups, faster than Hannah had ever seen any living thing move, making eerie, unearthly howls that would certainly have sent chills down the human Hannah’s spine. A rabbit darted out of the underbrush, and one of the wolves caught it within seconds, shredding its flesh with its long, snapping jaws.

Hannah watched them, transfixed, for several minutes. No matter what Type somebody was, Hannah had always thought of werewolves as _people_ , regardless of whether they had been unwillingly transplanted into wolves’ bodies and minds. But these weren’t people. These weren’t anything like people.

Then she thought of Tory and the promise she’d made to look after her. Hannah turned around, scanning the area where Tory had transformed. But she was nowhere to be seen – she must have joined the pack as it had pushed its way forth. Hannah realized that she wouldn’t be able to identify Tory even if she was in plain sight. One transformed werewolf looked very much like another, especially to someone who had spent most of her life avoiding images of wolves. And if, by some miracle, Hannah figured out who Tory was, what was she supposed to do then? Hannah couldn’t even control a Type Three when it was inside herself.

It had been an impossible promise to make.

At least the Moon Pill seemed to be working. But what if it suddenly stopped? Would Hannah end up in the wolf pack herself, all menacing yellow eyes and glistening teeth? Would she come to with her mouth bloody, gorged on dead rabbit?

Hannah did the only thing she could think of: she ran.

She forced the wolf’s body on for what felt like miles, every muscle aching like she had slammed herself repeatedly against a wall. The frigid December wind whipped unforgivingly through her bones with no regard to the wolf’s thick fur. She kept going until the howling and wailing of the wolves in the distance was far enough away that she doubted her own wolf could find them – at least, not before she regained consciousness. Then she found a small pile of leaves she could huddle up in, where she shivered violently as the moon shone down from above.

She tried to sleep. She didn’t.

***

Christmas at Rumon was strange. Hannah was used to having a house stuffed to the gills with people, all laughing and talking and having stupid arguments about who had done what in childhood. At Rumon, it was much quieter and simpler.

After a special breakfast of pancakes with lingonberry jam, courtesy of Amelia, they went to the tree to open their presents. Hannah had bought Amelia, Gwyn, and Brenna their gifts with her limited supply of solvens: three warm red scarves she’d commissioned from Aria, who knitted, and boxes of chocolates she’d found in one of the Rumon stores. She’d given Tory one of her own T-shirts, the one that said KEEP CALM AND READ NOVELS on it, which she’d received as a present from Andrew several years earlier. Tory glowed when she opened it.

“This one’s for you,” she said, shoving a rectangular object that Hannah recognized as one of Tory’s favorite fantasy novels into her arms. “And this came in the mail yesterday – but Mom says you should open it by yourself.”

Hannah looked down at the large box that Tory was staggering under the weight of. It had no return address. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll open it together.”

Back in her room, Hannah slit the box open with her nail scissors. A small pile of gifts was waiting inside. She looked down at the ones on the top and realized that each of them had been labeled.

“They’re from my parents and brothers,” she said.

A cacophony of images rose up her mind’s eye – her mother crying; her father’s clenched jaw; Tom standing in the doorframe, confessing to what he had done. She closed her eyes briefly, then ordered herself to get a grip.

“You can open them if you want,” she said. “I don’t – I don’t need them.”

“Are you sure?” said Tory. She reached inside the box and pulled out one of the topmost presents. “From Topher,” she read. “With love from Harry, Ella, and Aimee. Who’s Topher? Who’s Harry?”

Hannah froze and glanced down at the package Tory was holding. “My friends,” she said. “Are there any others from them?”

“I don’t think so,” said Tory, looking. “There’s, um, Gulliver, Tom, Andrew, Moe, Mom and Dad… and I think that’s it.”

“Okay,” said Hannah, easing the first package out of Tory’s arms. “You can have the others. I just want this one.”

She tore off the wrapping paper as carefully as possible—foolish, considering that she had absolutely no use for a piece of paper covered in dancing snowmen, but she wanted to keep it anyway. Inside was a plastic bag containing – according to the package – “Enough fake beards to keep you and all your comrades entertained for hours!” Hannah grinned. A card had been taped to the top.

Ella’s handwriting was the biggest and boldest.

_HANNAH COBHAM WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??? You could at least have given us some warning!!! School sucks – Aims got into college already and we all want to kill her. Come home. Or else. LOVE FROM YOUR ELLA._

Then there was Aimee’s neat script.

_Hannah, we all miss you, but I hope you’re having a wonderful time where you are. We’d love it if you could come visit. Trevarthen isn’t the same without you._

Topher had taken up half a page – Hannah sought his handwriting hungrily.

_Hey, Han. Remember that first time we met, and you didn’t know what to say, so you started blabbering on about how you wanted a beard because you thought it would make people take you seriously? Well, I’m hoping I’ve found a way to make that dream come true. The only thing I ask is that you provide photographic evidence – I’m not providing these obligation-free, you understand. Seriously, though: I miss you way more than you deserve, but I’m with Aimee in hoping that Rumon’s being good to you. Well. Good enough so that you’re having a decent time, but bad enough so that you come back to us someday? Is that a selfish thing to say? Whatever. I’m over it._

_Anyway, I hope this brightens your Christmas a little bit. Your brothers say I can send it with the stuff they’re sending, so with any luck it’ll reach you okay._

_Love from Topher._

Hannah lingered on the last sentence longer than any of the rest of the card.

Harry’s message was the shortest.

_I miss you, **.... .— —. —. .— ....**_

Morse Code. Without intending to, Hannah tapped out her name on her knee.

_H-A-N-N-A-H._

***

By the time they’d finished dinner (a delicious beef stew that Amelia had been planning for days), Hannah was fairly certain that the day’s surprises were over, but she was proven wrong. She was just drying the dishes when she heard voices in the hall.

Diana had stopped by – and was accompanied by a visitor.

“She wants to speak to Hannah,” Diana explained to Amelia. She didn’t sound happy. “Apparently they know each other from Curnow. She only wants an hour. She won’t be staying overnight.”

Hannah heard Diana’s footsteps moving away, and a second later, Amelia and the mystery guest strode through the kitchen door. Then it was all Hannah could do not to stare.

Mrs. Robeson had come to Rumon.

She looked exactly the same, from her intricately arranged box braids to her regal way of holding herself. As it had been several years since Hannah had last seen her, she wasn’t sure whether to hug her or just shake her hand, but Mrs. Robeson didn’t give her the chance to do either.

“Why don’t we go back to the library?” she said. “Amelia said we could talk there.”

Mystified, Hannah followed her. The library was the smallest room in the house and so filled with books that hardly any wall space was visible. Mrs. Robeson settled herself into one of the beanbag chairs and Hannah faced her in the other.

“My wife’s family lives out here, so I was in the area,” Mrs. Robeson said. “And Rose and David asked if I would, and… okay, I admit I was getting pretty curious myself. I wasn’t much older than you when I first came here. How are you finding it?”

“Great,” said Hannah firmly. “I have a lot of fun at work, and my housemates are awesome.”

“They are, aren’t they? Tory’s a great kid. I remember her from my last stint here.”

Hannah recalled that it hadn’t been long since Mrs. Robeson’s last visit. For all she knew, she might have even come back here a few times since her _Washington Post_ article.

“Now,” Mrs. Robeson continued, “I’m _not_ here to try to talk you into leaving, if that’s what you’re thinking. Rose wanted me to – she’s got her reasons for not thinking much of this place – but I said I wouldn’t do it. It’s your decision to make.”

Hannah couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So why did you come, then?”

“To see how you were,” said Mrs. Robeson. “If anyone knows the ups and downs of life here, it’s me. I thought if there was anything you wanted to talk about – anything that you might find hard to discuss with some of the more, shall we say, _seasoned_ members of the community – you could run it by me. There is a bit of a party line here, as I’m sure you’ve discovered.”

If anybody else had said these things to Hannah, she was sure she would have rolled her eyes and stalked off to her room until they left. But this was Mrs. Robeson. There was something about her that made Hannah trust her, respect her – maybe it was their shared experience as Type Threes, or the fact that Mrs. Robeson never seemed to assume anything about how Hannah was feeling. She found that she did want to talk.

“Well… I guess I’ve been wondering about Moon Pills. And why you’re not supposed to have them here.” Then she remembered to lower her voice. “It doesn’t make any _sense_ , does it? They don’t hurt anyone. They let us be normal. Or – or – you know what I mean. As normal as we can be.”

“I do know what you mean,” said Mrs. Robeson seriously. “It’s… I guess it’s one of those things that a lot of people call _complicated_. Of course, it’s not complicated at all if you trace it back to its source. But I don’t think that’s what’s going to make it make sense for you, Hannah. If you weren’t there when it happened – when those beliefs became rules – there’s only so much you _can_ understand. And I _was_ there, and even I don’t totally…. well. It’s just one of those things.”

“You were there?” said Hannah, more confused than ever.

Mrs. Robeson nodded. “When the vote came through – a couple of years after the Moon Pill was invented – I was working on my article. I attended several town meetings, and then Diana pushed the vote through. She’s an excellent speaker, isn’t she? Won by a landslide. I saw it happen. And I saw the aftermath happen, too. And there are parts I still don’t understand. If you believe – as you and I do – that everyone has the right to make their own medical decisions, we can only get so far, in terms of empathy. But I guess… imagine, for just a moment…

“Pretend you’ve lived at Rumon all your life. That this is all you know – that maybe you go into Beringold every now and then, but you’ve never been more than five miles away from home. America as a country, as a concept, doesn’t mean anything to you. The only identity you have is as a Rumon werewolf. You’d stick to that identity, wouldn’t you? You’d be proud of it. You’d defend it with everything you had.”

“I know,” said Hannah. “I’ve seen that here. Lots of times. But that still doesn’t explain –”

“It _does_ ,” said Mrs. Robeson. “Maybe I’m going about this wrong… hmm. Tell me, Hannah. If someone asked you what being a werewolf was like, what would you say?”

Hannah frowned instinctively. “I’d tell them it was exactly the same as not being one. Except once a month you have to go through some stupid stuff. But it doesn’t _mean_ anything about who you are. And it’s not anyone’s _business_ but ours.”

“There you go,” said Mrs. Robeson approvingly. “That’s the difference. You think of yourself as part of the outside world – whether you live in it or not. But people who grew up here – and most people who move here, eventually – see themselves as totally separate, with absolutely nothing in common with their neighbors, who have always been afraid of them. Which makes transformations into a strength, rather than the effect of a disease. It turns the pain into a privilege; it even turns the moment when the wolf takes over into a spiritual journey that non-lycanthropes are incapable of experiencing. And so the idea of shutting that off… it’s heresy, Hannah. They can’t see it through our eyes. And we can’t see it through theirs.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” said Hannah. “To… to _want_ it. Instead of hating it.”

“You don’t have to hate it. God knows I did for most of my life. But you don’t have to. Hating something is a choice – though taking pride in something is a process, and it can’t be forced. It seems very strange to me to _want_ pain. In my experience, only the people who have grown most accustomed to it ever want more of it.”

“I just want to be able to _choose_. For myself. I can deal with the pain and all that. It’s the other stuff – when it takes over, and I stop being _me –_ that’s – you know. That.”

Hannah sighed. Her mind didn’t want to go down this route anymore; it was starting to feel wobbly and dangerous. “When you said you were here for the aftermath of the Moon Pill vote…” she said. “What did you mean? Did you meet Tory’s dad before Diana kicked him out?”

Mrs. Robeson gave Hannah a long look before nodding slowly. “Gavin Marrock. Real firecracker of a guy. Things might have been very different around here if… oh, but there’s no use in dwelling. The vote happened two weeks after I arrived to research my article. Frankly, my timing couldn’t have been worse. I got here to find that two strong factions had formed: one led, of course, by Diana, protesting the Moon Pills. The other – a small but determined group – was led by Gavin. When he lost the vote, it would have taken a very naïve person to expect him to give up.”

“But what could he do?” asked Hannah. “If they’d already voted?”

“I think he hoped they would change their minds. He talked to me about it a few times, because he knew I was dependent on Moon Pills myself. He kept saying that Diana’s supporters didn’t really understand what Moon Pills were – how, if they could only _see_ , they would think differently… and so he and his friends smuggled full bottles of the stuff inside. I think the idea was that they would convert the others gradually, one by one, until somebody called for a revote. But that never happened. Several of the men who claimed to be on his side decided they’d rather cultivate favor with Diana than control their transformations. And they betrayed him.”

“Poor Amelia,” said Hannah.

“From what I saw, she wasn’t happy about the situation he’d gotten himself into,” said Mrs. Robeson, taking a quick glance over her shoulder at the door. “But of course, I was concentrating on my article, and the _Post_ wanted something basic and explanatory, not that whole mess – so I wasn’t about to do any digging in that direction, at least not in any official sense. The heart of it was this: Diana called everyone into the stone circle around the town hall one evening and told us she had an announcement to make. We all knew what was going to happen… but we pretended we didn’t. I think we thought it would be easier that way.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” said Hannah. “If you knew they were about to kick him out –”

Mrs. Robeson shook her head. “It wasn’t just Gavin. It was everyone who’d had even the tiniest role in the smuggling. Diana had a whole list – she read the names right off. There was nothing anyone could do, as the vote had been perfectly democratic. Everyone had agreed that people who brought in Moon Pills would be banished. And there I was, a reporter who had already assured the _Post_ that I wouldn’t stir things up – and I could only stand there and watch. People were crying… many of them had lived at Rumon their entire lives. In a single night, thirty people were gone. Some of them took their families. The people that remained continued to support Diana… and I guess they put that night behind them.”

“But what about Amelia?” Hannah protested. “And Tory – why didn’t they go too? Tory says Amelia thought it was dangerous outside, but –”

“All I know is that it was very unfortunate for Gavin,” said Mrs. Robeson. “He misses them very much – both of them, although his divorce was finalized last year. We meet up for coffee sometimes. He writes his family letters, asking Amelia to send Tory for a visit after the full moon… says neither of them ever writes back, that he thinks Amelia’s throwing them away unopened. He’s more of a firecracker that’s been quenched, nowadays.”

Hannah said nothing and chewed on the sides of her tongue. She could imagine it all too well: Diana with that cold, rock-hard expression on her face; the community gathered around her, watching the consequences unfold, keeping their thoughts to themselves.

“Tell… tell Gavin I say hi,” Hannah said eventually. “And that Tory misses him.”

“I will. He’ll appreciate that.” Mrs. Robeson nodded again, with a note of finality. “It’s been good talking to you, Hannah. I’ll tell Rose you’re doing just fine. She’ll have no reason to worry. You seem to have just as solid a head on your shoulders as the first time I met you.”

“I don’t know about _that_ ,” said Hannah, as several examples to the contrary streaked through her mind. “But thank you.”

She got up. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to return to her room and take out her Christmas letter. To be alone with Topher’s handwriting and sarcastic comments, in a place where there were no dangerous secrets or ironclad rules. But –

“Wait just a minute,” said Mrs. Robeson, standing up and looking back at her. “Could you bring Gwyn in for me? I want to have a quick chat with him before I leave.”

Hannah supposed that they knew each other from the last time Mrs. Robeson had been at Rumon. She shrugged, and to her surprise, Mrs. Robeson gave her a warm hug that made the inside of her chest ache a little. It had been a long time since Hannah had been hugged by anyone from her old life. The realization made her feel strangely cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short discussion of Rumon and Why It's Like This, and also some Mrs. Robeson.


	24. The Truth

Gwyn was in the living room, reading a battered old detective novel that he had balanced on the crook of his knee. When Hannah told him why she was there, he nearly dropped his coffee mug.

“All right,” he said, in a rather odd voice. “If she wants to talk, I’ll talk. Lead the way.”

Hannah kept darting glances at him as he followed her to the library. He looked pale and guarded, and Scarlett was clinging more closely than she had when Hannah had walked in. Perhaps he and Mrs. Robeson hadn’t liked each other when she had lived there? But then it didn’t make sense for her to want to talk to him.

Hannah hadn’t planned to eavesdrop, but once she was at the door, she found that she had no real desire to step away. They were speaking much more loudly than she and Mrs. Robeson had.

“It isn’t _like_ that, Isobel. I just wanted to tell her – I just thought she needed to know –”

“Needed to know what? She’s got all the information she needs. You left her in the middle of the night, years and years ago, and didn’t even bother to leave a note, which is already unforgivable in my book – ”

“Isobel, please –”

“And then you send a letter back with _me_ —so _I_ get dragged into the mess – and you get her hopes up, and you start exchanging letters, and you hint that you’re thinking about coming back – but then the letters _stop_ , and you’re still _here_ , and _just_ as she opens herself up to the idea of dating someone else, you send her another letter. So why, Gwyn? Do tell me why.”

“Because of – because – why do you think? Because of _this!”_ And Hannah knew he was gesturing at Scarlett. “I keep thinking I’m _that_ close to getting rid of the damn thing – and then I can come _back_ , don’t you see?”

“You know Rose doesn’t care about that,” snapped Mrs. Robeson. “It’s pure cowardice, that’s what it is. It’s been twelve years. You can stay here in paralysis or you can try to get her back; I don’t care what you do. But _no more letters_ , not if you haven’t made up your mind – do you understand me? Because then I _will_ tell her I spoke to you, and I’ll tell her everything you told me. I’ll screen her mail if I have to.”

“I would never – the _last_ thing I want is to hurt her,” said Gwyn, not just a little bit desperately. “I need her to understand that none of this is her fault. That I only want the best for her – for God’s sake, Isobel, I’ve never stopped being in love with her! The letters she sent… she kept blaming herself; you’re her best friend; you’ve seen it! I’m trying to _help_ , don’t you see?”

“No,” said Mrs. Robeson coldly. “Make up your mind, Gwyn. You can let that eidolon control you, or you can take your life back. Like I said, I don’t care. But you’re going to have to decide.”

Hannah heard the telltale creaking that meant Mrs. Robeson and Gwyn had both gotten up and had a split second to realize she needed to flee. As she ran to her room, a whole cluster of thoughts sparked in her head in unison.

The girlfriend Gwyn had left in Curnow so many years ago had been… _Rose?_ Then… that had to mean that the ex-boyfriend Rose had once talked about had been Gwyn – and Mrs. Robeson knew this because she and Rose had gone to college together. Hannah tried to remember the last time she had heard Rose mention her ex. It had definitely been years ago. Rose hadn’t referred to him on the day when Hannah had asked her for help with the eidolon, but she _had_ said that she’d had trouble with eidolons herself recently – and that would make sense if Gwyn had been sending her letters, wouldn’t it?

Hannah liked Gwyn better than anyone at Amelia’s but Tory, but she had to admit to herself that if what she’d just overheard was true, Gwyn was worse than an idiot. It didn’t matter how much he loved Rose. He’d been away from her for twelve years – and even if he’d promised Rose he’d come back, if he wouldn’t let himself return until Scarlett went away, Rose might well be waiting for the rest of her life.

Hannah toyed with the idea of writing Rose a letter of her own, and then with the idea of writing Gwyn one in secret, but in the end, she decided that there wasn’t much she could do except keep what she had learned close to her chest.

Her easy friendship with Gwyn was sure to be less enjoyable if he knew that the woman he’d been in love with for most of his life had been her doctor since she was eight. Telling Gwyn that she thought he should go back wasn’t likely to achieve much, if even Mrs. Robeson was unsuccessful. And anyway, Hannah would probably never see Rose again. _She_ couldn’t visit Rumon, after all.

The only person Hannah told was Topher, on the phone in the clearing that night. She’d never missed an opportunity to get him caught up on some good gossip, and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. She also told him about her conversation with Mrs. Robeson, and the things she’d found out about Tory’s family, and how much she had loved his package. But she didn’t tell him about the transformation several nights before, because the memory of it still made her chest hurt. And Topher seemed to have guessed that, because he didn’t ask. Not once.

They talked until Hannah’s phone died. Then she crept through her bedroom window to meet the thin slices of sunlight that were leaking through her curtains.

***

Hannah did not have as many Moon Pills as she’d hoped.

The horrible truth dawned on her about two weeks after Christmas, when she realized that she would have to make good on her promise to Tory sooner rather than later, and that she might as well start planning for the next full moon. Certain that she had counted wrong the first time, she re-emptied the bottle into her hand and counted again. But there was no mistake. She had enough Moon Pills for just one more full moon – and only for herself.

Cursing her stupidity, she fought to think of ways to get more within a week. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of Rose and David knowing that she was using Moon Pills illegally at Rumon, but she saw no reason why they wouldn’t continue to prescribe them for her anyway. But how would she get the prescription? Having them send it through the mail seemed like asking for trouble, even if Hannah asked them not to use Curnow Hospital envelopes. And if she did manage to get her hands on a prescription, how would she get it filled?

It was going to take more planning than she’d anticipated. Maybe later she could get Mrs. Robeson to smuggle in a prescription for her, and then sneak into Beringold on a day when the shop was slow, but there was no chance she could do that now. She would have to tell Tory to wait another month, that was all – and what was another month when Tory had gone her entire life without Moon Pills? It would be much less difficult for Tory to wait than for Hannah.

Ignoring the twist of guilt that she felt at this decision, Hannah put the Moon Pills back into their bottle and prepared for another day at the Marrock Christmas Market. It was their first time open after the holiday, and though they expected to get fewer customers, Amelia had arranged a sale, so that the tourists straggling around Beringold could get their “sacred” moonstone ornaments for even less.

But everything changed when the Rumon van pulled into the parking lot and they caught their first glimpse of the shops.

There was a crowd gathered in front of them, and their hands were linked, so as to block any attempt at progress toward the doors. Hannah spotted Drexler, Bolling, and Forgan immediately, standing like boulders in the center of the crowd. This time, Forgan had removed his pistol from his pocket. It was hanging off his belt, its ominous gray finish glinting silver in the sunlight.

Carew was there too, his arm around a haggard-looking woman who could only be his wife. They were shouting something Hannah couldn’t hear over the rest of the crowd. They didn’t seem to have brought their daughter – the one all this chaos was supposedly for – but there were plenty of other children among the group.

Some of them were holding signs. Hannah squinted and was just able to make them out – THE IRON GATE WAS BUILT FOR A REASON, WE ARE LAMBS IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES, JUSTICE FOR LOUISA. When they saw the van, the children screamed, and their parents screamed even louder.

“Nobody get out of the car,” said Amelia sharply. She gestured for Brenna and Sabine, who ran the jewelry shop, to unbuckle and move closer to the driver’s seat. She switched on a pop radio station and turned the volume up, so that the music jumbled into the sound of her voice and made it impossible for Hannah and the others to eavesdrop.

The three of them spoke for a long time. Then Amelia turned the radio off.

“We’re calling Diana,” she said. “There’s no protocol for something like this. They’ve got guns… we can’t send teenagers into that.”

“I thought phones weren’t allowed at Rumon,” said Hannah.

“For emergencies, they are.” Amelia was already removing a small black phone from the glovebox. She dialed a number, then turned the music up again.

Hannah watched the crowd for a while. They had gradually moved to the outer edges of the parking lot, and Hannah was sure that they would soon shove their signs into the windows of the van. If she pressed her ear up against the glass, she could hear some of the things they were shouting, despite the music. Drexler was closest, and Hannah heard shreds of his hoarse, angry voice. He was calling them cowards; ordering them to come out and face them; threatening to smash up the car if they refused. Hannah thought that he was just trying to rile them up, but she wasn’t totally sure. That seed of doubt was enough to make her hope Diana told them what to do quickly.

After what seemed an age, Amelia silenced the music again and turned back to Hannah and her friends.

“We’re not going home,” she said. “If we do, Diana says we’re sending a clear message to Drexler that they’ve won. So Brenna and Sabine and I are going to try and calm them down a little, all right? _Do not leave the car._ Keep it locked, keep the phone with you – and if anything happens, call Diana.”

She opened the door and stepped rather stiffly into the January chill. Brenna and Sabine followed, their brows knotted. Seconds after their backs were turned, Hannah rolled down her window so that she could hear what was happening more clearly. Aria gave her a scandalized look, but Bram smirked and rolled down his window, too.

The crowd had gone momentarily quiet at the appearance of the people they’d been trying to goad out of the van, but the hush didn’t last for more than a few seconds. Their hesitation only made way for the dull roar of Drexler’s voice, echoing out across the parking lot.

“Come to fight us?” he said, laughing. “You can fight all you want; it won’t change a thing. You’ll never sell another trinket again – we’ll make sure that even the tourists know what you’ve done. They’ll know you for the monsters you are.”

“We’re only trying to make a living. Same as anybody else,” said Amelia. “You can’t blame us for an honest mistake, for a choice that someone else made –”

“No,” snarled Drexler. “Which is it? It can only be one or the other. Was the attack of Louisa Carew a mistake, or was it a choice? It can’t be both.”

“We’d banished him,” said Sabine. “He wasn’t a part of Rumon anymore.”

She and Amelia began to push forward against the crowd, heading for the back doors of the shops, and after a few seconds’ reluctance, Brenna followed. But they were stopped within seconds by something Hannah had missed among the chaos of the rest of the crowd.

A cluster of policemen, armed and uniformed, were standing behind Drexler and his cohorts. Their strength was no match for the three women. They grabbed them by the arms and held them there.

“The police,” said Drexler, “are on our side, too. They were the first on the scene after Carew’s daughter was bitten.”

One of them smiled at him, and Drexler slapped him playfully on the shoulder, even as the policeman was twisting Sabine’s hands in a vicelike grip. Amelia had gone limp and stopped trying to move; it was clear that the appearance of the police had taken away her desire to comply with Diana’s wishes. Brenna, on the other hand, seemed to have gone into a strange, convulsive trance. Her hands were scrabbling at the place where her policeman was holding them to her stomach, her legs were kicking at every part of him she could reach, and she seemed to have foregone all dignity in her need to get away from him.

“Assault of an officer,” said Brenna’s policeman in a gruff voice. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you in for that.”

“Brenna,” said Amelia desperately. “It’s not worth it. We’ll explain to Diana when we get back –”

The rest of her words were muffled by another policeman’s gloved hand. Hannah frowned – it seemed absurd to keep Amelia from telling Brenna to stop resisting – but then she understood. These people hadn’t come here to riot; they’d arrived with a _plan_. They wanted to arrest somebody; they wanted to assert their power over Rumon in the clearest terms possible. And – Hannah realized with rising horror – there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. If it came down to it, the people of Beringold would be believed over the werewolves of Rumon. She was certain of that.

“So,” said her policeman, dodging Brenna’s attempt to twist his elbow, “I’m arresting you for the assault of a police officer. Remember that you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you, and you have the right to an attorney when questioned. Doesn’t matter anyway – I’m taking you to the station, and I’ll let your precious Diana bail you out – but only once Drexler’s had a good long chat with her.”

Brenna growled in a way that was oddly feral and tried to yank herself from the policeman’s grasp once again. Hannah had the sudden impression that Brenna had found herself in this position before.

“I’ll need your full name,” said Sabine’s policeman, dropping his grip on Sabine to withdraw a small notepad from his jacket pocket. “And your ID, if you’ve got that with you.”

“I haven’t had one for years,” spat Brenna. “We’re not part of your stupid bureaucracy.”

Sabine’s policeman slapped her hard on the cheek, and Brenna flinched. The crowd cheered. Hannah could even see the children cheering, jumping up and down in their cartoon-themed snow boots, clapping in triumph in their pink woolen mittens.

“Just your legal name, then,” said the policeman. “We don’t need your home address. We’ve got that already.”

Brenna closed her eyes. Sabine’s policeman gave her a push, so that she was jostled off one foot, and her own policeman had to prop her back up.

_“Name.”_

“Srebrenka,” said Brenna in a choked voice. “Srebrenka Elena Vukoja.”

Hannah shut the window and slid down in her seat.

***

Afterward, Hannah couldn’t remember how long it took for Amelia and Sabine to rejoin them in the car. She only remembered locking her door so that even Tory couldn’t come in; slipping under her covers and staying there. Nobody was looking for her anyway. Everyone’s focus was on Diana, who had stormed out of the iron gate the instant the van had returned.

Night fell, and Gwyn prepared dinner, but Hannah still didn’t emerge. She waited until midnight, when she was sure everyone had gone to bed, and then she tore out of the house and into the clearing.

She dialed Topher’s number with shaking fingers. She listened to the sound of the tone, letting the vibration thrum through her chest. She’d hear his voice in a minute. She’d tell him everything. He would say something that would make sense, that would help her _understand_ , and then she would feel better.

But he didn’t pick up.

_“Hi, you’ve reached Topher Sewell. I’m not available right now – let’s be honest, I’m probably being lazy and playing video games or something instead of bothering to pick up my phone. But since I like to think of myself as a decent person, I’ll call you back before too long. Just leave your name and number after the beep.”_

He was never too lazy to pick up the phone when it was her.

She called him again. She got the answer tone. She called him a third time. Nothing. Slowly, she began to remember him saying something about a school trip, about staying overnight on a college visit, and realized that he’d probably put his phone on silent so that he didn’t wake up his roommates. Their phone conversations had made him seem so close, but he wasn’t; not really. He was out in the real world, in a place where she couldn’t reach him.

She buried her face in her hands.

***

Hannah left her room early for breakfast the next morning. She’d hoped that she would be the only one awake, but Tory was there to greet her at the dining room table. She was reading a biography of Audrey Hepburn that Hannah suspected she’d found in her Christmas package, but looked up when Hannah approached.

“You were _really_ tired last night. Are you okay?”

“Of course,” said Hannah, forcing a smile. “Are you?”

“Yes,” said Tory, “but Brenna isn’t, and neither is Diana. They came home super late last night. Diana had a black eye, and Brenna has tons of bruises. There’s a special town meeting this afternoon to talk about it.”

“You tell me what happens,” said Hannah wearily, pouring cornflakes into her bowl. “I’m going to stay home.”

“You can’t,” said Tory cheerfully. “Rumon rules.”

“Tell them I’m sick,” said Hannah. She was sure she looked it.

“But you just said you were fine.”

“Well, now I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Diana says we have to get revenge. Show them what will happen if they keep trying to push us around.”

“What kind of revenge?”

“I don’t know,” said Tory, a little anxiously. “Do you think she’s going to kill someone?”

Hannah snorted. “It would serve them right.”

Tory frowned. “Well, there is one good thing about it. Since everybody’s so distracted by what’s going on, that means our chances of people figuring out about the _Moon Pills_ –” (she mouthed these words) “– is even less. When do I have to start taking them? It’s the new moon today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Hannah, with an unpleasant jolt in her gut. “Um… we’ll talk about that later. I need to go lie down.”

She escaped from the table, taking her cereal bowl with her. It was stupid to feel so guilty about keeping the Moon Pills for herself – they were _hers_ , after all, and they were her only hope of reason and sanity here. The thought of leaving, suppressed for so many weeks, flitted again through her mind, and for a second she was tempted to sprint through the iron gate, call Tom or Andrew to come pick her up, and be back in her own bed in Curnow that evening.

But she knew that she wouldn’t. Not accepting her family’s Christmas present had been a conscious choice, a severing of the ties that had bound them – and no matter who Brenna was or what she had done, Hannah couldn’t erase that choice. She wasn’t her family’s anymore. She was Rumon’s.

She drank the soggy dregs of her cereal and shut her eyes.

***

Hannah was awakened in the late afternoon by the sound of someone knocking gently but persistently on her door. She remembered that she had locked it, and figured that it was Tory, just returned from the meeting, exploding with observations and ideas. Partly to assuage her guilt, and partly because she knew she’d have to learn what Diana had said sooner or later, Hannah heaved herself up and opened the door.

But it wasn’t Tory. It was Brenna.

Hannah made to slam the door, but Brenna put her hand on the doorframe, so that she couldn’t without smashing her fingers. Hannah found herself staring into Brenna’s bruised and bloodied face.

The policemen had broken her nose. Brenna seemed to have mopped it up as best she could, but it was noticeably swollen, and blood had hardened around its edges. She also had several vicious-looking cuts on her cheeks.

“Can we talk?” she murmured. “I stayed back from the meeting. I got Diana’s permission. I don’t… I don’t want to make excuses. I only want to apologize.”

Hannah looked at her warily for another few seconds, then opened the door a fraction of an inch further. Brenna walked inside and sat on the floor. Hannah was glad. She did not want her on her bed.

“I wanted to tell you,” said Brenna, looking up at her beseechingly. “I tried. But every time, I lost my nerve. I knew you’d be angry, and I knew that I’d deserve it. And I knew that others at Rumon wouldn’t understand, because they would want you to be grateful for the gift I gave you. But I know what you think, and you’re right.” She took a deep breath. “It isn’t a gift. It’s a curse.”

Hannah said nothing.

“I was in jail for four years. I should be there still.”

“Yes.”

“I never… I never meant to hurt you.” Brenna gazed at the patterns the wood floor made, then shut her eyes as if the sight of it pained her. “I was bitten just after I turned eleven. My parents were still in Croatia; I only had my sisters to take care of me. Slatka and Madlena were much older; they’d promised our parents they’d look after me… they found a doctor who was willing to lie, to say I was a Type Two on the paperwork. They pulled me out of school… locked me up every full moon… but I got tired of it, especially after I reached my thirties. They loved me, but they’d given me no independence, and I… wanted a life.”

“Eventually I told them that I could handle things on my own. We had an argument… and I moved out. I started driving out to the forest to transform – I couldn’t take locking myself up anymore. It was a dense forest – often cold – not a popular place for hikers. I thought it would be safe. And – and it was, for a while.”

“It was a campsite,” snapped Hannah. “Tons of families went there every single year. Are you saying that you never looked, you never checked –”

“It didn’t occur to me,” said Brenna softly. “By that time, I’d been a werewolf for more than twenty years. I lived alone; I had no friends – nobody that I trusted with my secret. I had a small job at a supermarket, where nobody asked questions, and an even smaller apartment. I wasn’t speaking to my sisters. Life doesn’t mean very much when you’re living like that.”

“You could have _decided_ to trust people,” said Hannah, her fury escalating so quickly that she began feel hot. “You could have made up with your sisters. You could have moved out of Wisconsin. You could have gone to a part of the forest where there weren’t any _fucking campsites.”_

Brenna nodded. She looked satisfyingly small from Hannah’s position on her bed, like a bug that could be crushed at her slightest whim.

“I was horrified when I found out what I’d done. I hated myself.”

“You were right to.”

“I know.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry,” said Srebrenka Vukoja. “I’m so sorry, Hannah.”

Hannah looked at her again. She did look sorry. Hannah couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought there might be tears glistening between the bloody patches on her battered face. But tears had never solved anything, and they certainly couldn’t _change_ anything. Brenna could fill the whole room with salt water if she wanted, and still it would not matter to Hannah.

“Get out,” she said. “Now.”

Brenna rose. She looked back once, and this time Hannah was sure about the tears.

She shut the door behind her and stepped away.

Hannah lay in the dark for several long minutes. Then she dug out her phone without bothering to sneak out to the clearing. She knew that Topher wouldn’t pick up, that he was busy, but she dialed his number anyway. She listened to his answer tone five times before she went back to sleep.


	25. Tunnels

Hannah awoke the next morning with a heavy feeling of dread in her chest. Part of her brain had remained awake all night, going over and over her conversation with Brenna, drawing parallels to things that she had no desire to examine. A course of action had come to Hannah upon opening her eyes, and it wasn’t one that she liked at all. But if she didn’t want to be like Brenna – if she didn’t want to be like her parents – if she didn’t want to be another link in what was already a steel chain of liars, deceivers, evaders –

Hannah threw the covers off herself and went to find Tory.

She was sitting at the table, reading about Audrey Hepburn, just as she had been the day before. She brightened visibly when Hannah slid into the seat next to her. Hannah focused on making her breathing less ragged.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Have you had breakfast?”

Tory nodded. “Are you still sick? You look kind of weird.”

“No,” said Hannah. “I… need to talk to you about something. It’s the first day after the new moon. If you still want to try out the Moon Pills – I mean, you definitely don’t have to – you’re totally free to change your mind –”

“Of course I want to!” Tory’s eyes glinted with what seemed to be a combination of nerves and wild excitement. “Should we go back to your room? I’ll go really quietly, so nobody hears –”

Hannah led the way, Tory tiptoeing behind her. The inside of her head felt as though layers of fog had built up inside it, making it impossible to see anything clearly. She slid onto her bed and let Tory jump up beside her. She gritted her teeth and took out the bottle of Moon Pills.

Did it actually _mean_ something, for Hannah to sacrifice a night of her own sanity in order to keep her promise to Tory? How sacred _was_ a promise like that? Did sacrificing herself for Tory’s sake, even for one night, really stop her from being like Brenna, who had forced Hannah to sacrifice everything?

Hannah had to look away as she opened the bottle. Her head pounded.

“Here,” she said. “Come by every morning, and I’ll give you your dose. I’d give you all of them at once, but if somebody finds them, I don’t want them blaming you.”

That, and the fact that Hannah wasn’t quite ready to let the bottle out of her sight. Just in case. Because it was always possible that Tory might change her mind.

Tory beamed and swallowed the pill down with the cup of tea she was clutching. Hannah forced a grin and gave her a high-five.

“Remember, you can’t –”

“Tell anyone, I _know_ ,” said Tory. “I’m not stupid.”

“Right,” said Hannah. “Um, what did Diana say at the town meeting yesterday? Does she know what she’s going to do about Drexler and the police?”

Tory put her hand on her chest, as if tracking the progress of the Moon Pill through her body. “Well, nobody’s going to work in the shops for a while. Diana was really angry… it was scary. She’s going to go to Richmond to talk to the governor, and she’s going to try to sue the police officers, too. But she also said – she said we had to do something else, something big, something they didn’t expect, and I didn’t like how she looked when she said it. What do you think she means?”

“I don’t know,” said Hannah. It was time for the other thing she’d sworn to do; the other secret she wouldn’t permit herself to keep. “Maybe Diana doesn’t know, either. But… Tory…”

“What?”

“Do you remember the woman who came to visit me on Christmas? Mrs. Robeson?”

“Of course,” said Tory. “I met her when she lived here before. She’s nice.”

“Well, we talked for a while,” said Hannah carefully. “As I’m sure you noticed. And she told me some things. And I don’t think I should keep them from you. Because secrets… secrets hurt people.”

Tory suddenly looked apprehensive. “It’s a secret about me?”

“Sort of,” said Hannah. She tapped her fingers on the bedframe. This was much more difficult than she had thought it would be. “Mrs. Robeson… knows your dad. She’s spoken to him, Tory.”

Tory froze. Hannah could see a deluge of emotions swarming behind her eyes, but she could only guess at the thoughts they inspired. She didn’t want to hurt Tory. She didn’t want to say anything that might upset her too much for Hannah to fix.

“Where is he?” whispered Tory. “Is he in Beringold? Can I go find him?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.” 

“You didn’t ask?”

“I didn’t think of it,” said Hannah quickly. “She told me that he misses you a ton and that he writes you letters all the time. That he wants you to visit, but he knows you can’t.”

“He writes me letters?” said Tory, looking astonished. “But I’ve never gotten any letters! Do you think they got lost in the mail?”

“I think… Mrs. Robeson made it sound like… I think your mom might be throwing them away. To protect you, I’m sure – she must be scared – I know she had a hard time in the outside world. She probably doesn’t want you to get hurt –”

But she knew it was useless from the moment she opened her mouth. There was no way to tell Tory and spare her from pain at the same time. Hannah settled for watching the rustling curtains on the open window instead of at Tory’s small, pale face.

Tory’s voice came out cracked. “You’ve known this since Christmas?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” said Hannah, feeling worse by the second. “I swear I’ll help you with anything you want to do. I can ask Mrs. Robeson to pass on messages, or try to find out his phone number – we can even borrow the phone from the van. I’ll talk to your mom with you – explain what happened –”

“I don’t want to talk to my mom. I want to talk to my _dad_.”

“Of course,” said Hannah, now trying desperately to find a smooth way of changing the subject. “Well, maybe you can think about it for a while, and – and you can tell me if you come up with any ideas. In the meantime, we could do something else. I know you beat me pretty bad at Scrabble the other day, but I’m willing to try again –”

“I think I want to be by myself,” said Tory.

She didn’t cry. She simply left, and let the door swing open behind her.

It was all Hannah could do to stop herself from running after her, tearing half-formed ideas off the top of her head about how to make it better or how she might render everything she’d just said meaningless. Instead, she opened the curtains and looked out at the sunlight on the melting snow. She couldn’t decide whether it was worse that she had told Tory or that she had waited so long to tell.

Not long ago, Hannah would have been sure of the answer to that question. She wondered if she was losing herself in a whole new way, a way that full moon nights couldn’t touch.

***

Without the Christmas Market to keep her busy, Hannah began spending all of her waking hours at Bram’s with Aria and Cynthia. They tried taking on various projects – turning their improv games into a play, putting together a proper comedy club – but with so much time on their hands, they quickly got lazy and began spending their days on the sofa in Bram’s living room, talking about nothing and everything in turns.

Hannah wasn’t especially surprised when all three of them revealed that they were on Diana’s side with regard to getting revenge. However, each of them had a different idea of how to go about it. Bram thought that biting Drexler, his cronies, and each of the police officers was the best idea, whereas Cynthia thought that the damage should extend to the town’s innocent. Aria simply thought that Diana should be given free rein to do whatever she saw fit.

Hannah didn’t know what she thought. The outright monstrousness of wanting to bite someone, no matter how evil they were, was enough to keep her disagreeing with all three of them, but after what had happened the last time they were in Beringold, she could understand why Bram felt the way he did. It was Cynthia’s opinion that really angered her. Hannah was so incensed by one conversation – in which Cynthia suggested positioning a Type Three on a street inhabited by children, and making sure as many of them were bitten as possible – that she began to find it hard to speak to her.

So she began to spend more time at Amelia’s, reading books from the library and edging around Brenna so that they were never in the same place at the same time. Worried, Gwyn came to her room to chat with her. Hannah faked cheerfulness as best she could and told him she was feeling under the weather. She didn’t want to talk to him for very long, as the constant presence of Scarlett had started to feel more and more disconcerting.

The only person that Hannah felt at ease with was Tory. After several days of uncharacteristic silence, Tory seemed to have made up her mind to forgive both Hannah and her mother, and mostly returned to her usual self. She did seem a little more prone to getting lost in her own thoughts, but Hannah didn’t press her. If she didn’t want to talk about it, Hannah certainly wasn’t going to make her. And there was something else that Tory seemed to want to talk about much more.

“The _Moon Pills,”_ she said, when there was only one more day to go before the full moon. “How will I know if they’re working?”

“You’ll know,” said Hannah, staring down at Harry’s stuffed duck. Its orange beak had turned a muddy brown after the loss of her colors. “It’ll still hurt – it’s still not going to be fun – but it’ll be better. Different. You’ll see.”

“But I won’t actually know for sure until the moon goes up? I won’t be able to tell until it works or it doesn’t?”

“It’ll work. You’re twelve. You’re small, still.”

“What about you? Are you going to stay with me?”

Hannah gritted her teeth. She had never told Tory that she wasn’t a Type One. She imagined that Tory thought she’d brought the Moon Pills out of some selfless desire to help people, or to begin a tiny, secret rebellion against Diana.

“Yeah,” she said, trying to ignore the feeling of ice settling into her stomach. “I’ll stay with you.”

Tory swung herself sideways, so that she hung almost completely upside-down off Hannah’s bed. Then she said – in a lower voice, which made Hannah think that she was concealing her face on purpose – “I just wish I could tell my dad about it.”

“Well, maybe you can,” said Hannah, trying her hardest to sound comforting. “Next time Mrs. Robeson visits, I’ll make sure you get a chance to talk to her, and she can tell him the next time she sees him.”

“I know, but I wish I could tell him _myself_. Visit him, or something. Do you think – do you think he’d be proud of me?”

“Yes,” said Hannah. “He’d be nuts if he wasn’t.”

“When’s Mrs. Robeson coming back?”

“I’ll write to her. As soon as possible.”

“Can you write to her today?”

“Once the full moon is over.” Hannah couldn’t think past the horrors that awaited her in less than twenty-four hours. Memories of the many hours spent locked in the Curnow Hospital basement were beating in the back of her head like a pulse. She shook her head to clear it. “Then she’ll come.”

***

Hannah was grateful that there was a town meeting scheduled for that night. It meant that she didn’t have to spend the evening eating veal cutlets in Amelia’s kitchen, pretending to be normal while terrible scenes replayed inside her head. Instead, she and the other residents of Amelia’s house filed outside, where snowflakes had begun to fall from the rapidly darkening sky. Through the clouds, Hannah could just make out the outline of the moon, so large now that someone who wasn’t concerned with it might mistake it for being full already.

They were meeting to discuss viable ways of getting back at Drexler and the police. As a means of self-defense, Hannah had brought along the fantasy novel Tory had given her for Christmas and positioned it in front of her face. She did not look at anybody.

“Thank you all for being here tonight,” Diana began crisply. True to Tory’s word, she had a black eye and cuts across her face, although she had attempted to hide her injuries – even from a distance, Hannah could see how much makeup she had caked around her bruising. Hannah decided she’d listen for a few minutes. Just long enough to know what was going on, and then she’d get back to her book.

“As we discussed last week, the majority of Rumon citizens agree that the time to act is _now_. Attempts at negotiation have not worked. Even our lawyers assure me that they can only help us to a certain degree.”

There came a loud murmuring from every row of the town hall. Hannah thought the others sounded excited – even glad. As if this meeting had been a long time coming.

“We’ll need a secretary and a co-chair for this meeting, and I’d like the secretary to be somebody with clear handwriting this time, please. I want these notes to serve as a declaration of intent to reclaim our rights by whatever means necessary. Now, Cynthia, I think you expressed interest – ?”

But Cynthia wasn’t looking at Diana. Out of everyone in the town hall, she was sitting closest to the door, and she was staring at it, her nostrils flared. She turned her head slowly towards the podium where Diana stood.

“I smell smoke,” she said. “Something’s on fire.”

Cynthia’s father leapt up from his seat and flung open the door. The harsh scent of burning hit Hannah’s nostrils instantly. It was more than just a small fire – she was sure of it. Somewhere nearby, something was caught in a devastating blaze, and it was spreading, and spreading rapidly –

“Meeting adjourned,” barked Diana. She ran for the door, too, and within seconds, the narrow rows of seats were filled with people trying to squeeze their way out, fear blossoming on their faces like dark, ugly flowers. Hannah hesitated for a moment, then ran after them. She had no desire to get caught in the crush, but she needed to know what was going on…

A bright light accosted her mere seconds after stepping through the door – a vicious, flickering light that hissed and belched smoke. For once, Hannah was grateful for the wolf’s eyes. Despite the lack of color, she was able to seek out details in the dark that would have evaded her the rest of the month. She could see where the path ended, where the fence rose up behind the cabins, beside the clearing she used to talk to Topher. And just beyond the fence…

“The woods,” said Tory in a stunned voice, craning her neck to see. “The woods are burning.”

As far as forest fires went, Hannah knew this was an insignificant one – the scale of it was nothing like the disasters in Colorado and California she’d seen on the news – but she was entranced by it all the same. Flames were licking the trees from all sides. Every few seconds, branches crumbled to dust; trunks swayed and split and were instantly eaten by the conflagration. She only managed to look away when she became distracted by the sound of panicked shouting.

“It’s them!”

“They’re here!”

“They knew we were meeting tonight – there’s a ladder by the gate –”

“Listen – they’re _laughing_ –”

And indeed, Hannah could hear the sound of raucous laughter echoing out near the source of the flames. Their foes moved closer – she could hear their footsteps, could hear their delighted voices drawing nearer and nearer to the crowd outside the town hall.

“What are you going to do now?” yelled a voice that she instantly recognized as Drexler’s, although it sounded more slurred than it had before. “Going to run away? Going to fight us? I’d guess not many of you are feeling up to a fight tonight… moon’s getting bigger, after all…”

Hannah could hear the grin in his voice and the chortles of approval his comrades gave him.

“If you wait more than a few minutes, that blaze is going to spread to those pretty little cabins of yours. And _then_ what’re you going to do?”

The voices laughed again. The smell of burning wood grew so acrid that Hannah began to feel dizzy.

Diana’s voice broke over Drexler’s, tight and authoritative.

“Anyone under eighteen, anyone with an infant – I want you back in the town hall _now_. Brenna, if you could take care of things in there – you know where to go. Everyone else, we’re going to divide into two teams – one to fight the fire, and one to contend with these morons –”

The crowd split as panicked groups of children and teenagers hurtled back toward the town hall. Aria, Bram, and Cynthia were among the group; they gave Hannah meaningful looks as they hurried past, as though they expected her to admit she’d been wrong about the townspeople. Hannah ignored them and glanced over at Tory. She had dug something out of the pocket of the coat Amelia had left on her seat and was twisting it in her hands.

“Just a minute,” said Hannah. “There’s Drexler, look…”

He was standing, as usual, between Bolling and Forgan, who were flexing their arms like bodyguards. Although Hannah was near the back of the crowd, she thought for a second that Forgan had been trying to catch her eye. She made an effort to stare stonily back at him, as if he was no more menacing than Gulliver and Moe on a particularly irritating day.

“Maybe I should fight,” she murmured to Tory. “I don’t know anything about putting out fires, but I could try and chase them away. Shout at them and stuff.”

“No,” said Tory. She didn’t look scared, but she didn’t look as though she was in the mood for jokes, either. “We have to follow Brenna. You heard what Diana said.”

Hannah started to ask her when she had started caring about obeying Diana, but her voice was lost in the chaos of several young parents pushing past them while their babies screamed. Hannah sighed and headed toward the town hall. It would be humiliating, of course, to be stuck inside with all the little kids, but burning to death didn’t sound particularly pleasant either, and of the things she was willing to die for, neither Drexler nor Diana fit the bill…

Hannah was careful to stand a distance away as she watched Brenna stride across the room and shove the podium aside. She bent down, as if to pick something up from off the floor, but remained crouched for much longer than seemed normal. The next time Hannah looked up, it was to discover Brenna pulling open a trapdoor.

“Everyone in,” said Brenna, pointing downward. “One at a time is probably best. Make sure you don’t trip on the steps –”

Hannah and Tory began their descent. It was a surprisingly long way down. There were four separate flights of stairs, and the dimly lit tunnel that the stairs led to went on for at least twenty minutes of walking. When at last they emerged into a long, dusty room that was layered in spiderwebs, Hannah felt certain that they weren’t even beneath Rumon anymore. This tunnel, then, had been built to get them out – as if the night’s events had been planned for, even anticipated.

“Well,” said Brenna, “make yourselves comfortable. More people will come and join us as the night goes on. They’ll give us updates and let us know when it’s safe to come back out again.”

One of the younger children began to sob. A chorus of imitators immediately rose up to accompany him.

“The best thing is probably to go to sleep,” said Brenna, gesturing at the room’s furniture, which consisted of beanbag chairs and a couple of cobwebby cots. “It will make the night pass more quickly.”

Hannah didn’t need to be told twice. The waxing moon was already creeping into her bones, and despite it being only nine o’clock, she knew she would fall asleep right away if she closed her eyes, no matter how many screaming children the room contained. She headed straight for one of the beanbag chairs and collapsed onto it. Tory sat on the one next to her and stared into space, threading the thing she’d taken from her mother’s jacket through her fingers. Hannah realized it was Amelia’s keychain and supposed Tory had taken it for comfort.

“Good night,” said Tory, looking uncharacteristically serious.

“Good night,” said Hannah, and she squeezed her eyes shut until sparks shot behind them. She folded her knees up between her elbows, forced her mind away from the thing that was lying in wait for it, and drifted off, the smell of smoke still lingering in her nostrils.

***

Hannah awoke to a pitch-black room and a distinct feeling of unease.

She shifted in her beanbag chair and dug around in her purse until she found her phone, which she had carefully hidden inside a pocket. She flipped her purse around so that it made a shield on her lap and checked the time. It was only two in the morning. She felt as though she had been asleep for much longer.

Hannah shoved the phone back into her purse and allowed her eyes to readjust to the dark. She could see Brenna’s sleeping form lying on one of the cots, with a child who couldn’t have been older than four snuggled beside her. More people seemed to have entered the safe room as the night had gone on. There were more adults than there had been before, although neither Amelia nor Gwyn had arrived yet. She turned to her left to see whether Tory was still asleep – and then sat up, startled.

Tory was gone.

Hannah shifted Tory’s beanbag around, checking and double-checking, eyes combing the rest of the room to see if maybe Tory had gone somewhere else. But she knew within a moment that it was pointless. Tory simply wasn’t there.

An image flashed into Hannah’s head – the image of Tory’s hands, twisting Amelia’s keychain across her thumb. In retrospect, her mother’s keys seemed a strange thing for Tory to have taken. Without them, Amelia wouldn’t be able to get into her own house – wouldn’t be able to access the van – wouldn’t be able to get through the iron gate –

Adrenaline suddenly filled Hannah’s chest.

 _“Where is he?”_ Tory had asked about her father. _“Is he in Beringold?”_

_“I wish I could tell him myself… visit him, or something…”_

Tory had gone to find him.

It had been the perfect plan. She had known everyone would be distracted by the fire; she had known that nobody would notice a small, resolute twelve-year-old girl with a key when there was Drexler to contend with. Tory had seen an opportunity and she’d taken it.

But Tory also knew nothing about the world outside of Rumon. She’d never even visited Beringold – Amelia’s fears had made sure of that. She had no idea of the dangers that faced even ordinary children on the streets at night. And while the chances that her father was hiding out in Beringold seemed miniscule to Hannah, they weren’t to Tory. To her, Beringold _was_ the outside world – the only place outside of Rumon she could even wrap her head around, just like Mrs. Robeson had said.

Hannah stood up. She had no idea when Tory had left – it was highly possible that she was wandering the streets already, being beaten to a pulp by a gang of Rumon-hating townspeople too cowardly to scale the iron gate. But there was no help for it. Hannah was the only person who knew where Tory had gone. She was the only person with any hope of finding her. She crept toward the door.

“Hannah?”

She whirled around. Brenna had risen from her place on the cot. She was watching Hannah intently, her mouth tight, her eyes troubled.

“Tory’s missing,” said Hannah.

Brenna was not going to stop her. Brenna had lost the right to tell Hannah anything.

“I’m going after her.”

Brenna’s expression turned sharp and alert. She sat down on the cot again.

 _“Missing?”_ she whispered. “But where could she have gone? These tunnels are so long – and it’s the middle of the night –”

“She’s gone to go look for her _father,_ ” Hannah hissed, “because she thinks he’s in Beringold. She took her mom’s keys so she could get through the gate. I need to find her. Don’t you dare try to keep me here.”

Brenna put her hands over her face. “She did have a certain look to her,” she murmured. “I know that look. I should have recognized it.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” said Hannah fiercely, moving toward the mouth of the tunnel. “I have to go, time’s running out, anything could be happening to her out there – it’s going to take me forever to even reach her – and you’d _better_ not tell Amelia or anyone else where we’ve gone –”

“I won’t,” said Brenna. She uncovered her eyes and drew a long, determined breath. “I wouldn’t, not after – everything. I owe you. Please, Hannah.” She slid her hand into the pocket of her jeans and drew something out. “Listen, I understand why you can’t forgive me. I’m not asking you to. Not anymore. But if I can’t give you an apology, at least I can give you something else. Let me help.”

She held something out to Hannah. It glinted in the fragments of light coming from the tunnel, like a diamond blinking out of its carbon shell. Brenna had given Hannah her keys. The twin to the set Tory had taken from Amelia.

“It will get you through. No climbing. Get her and bring her back. I won’t tell a soul.”

Hannah grabbed the keys and shoved them into her coat pocket. She met Brenna’s eyes for a fraught half-second and gave her a brusque nod – that was all she was owed. Then she tore down the tunnel, her heart thudding dangerously in her throat.


	26. The Longest Night

For most of Hannah’s life, panic had slowed time down rather than speeding it up, but there seemed to be an exception when it was someone else you were panicking about. Hannah desperately wanted time to freeze, so that Tory – wherever she was – would be safe from the countless dangers awaiting her in Beringold, but no matter how fast she ran through the tunnel, she was aware of five, ten, twenty minutes slipping through her fingers – and by the time she emerged through the trapdoor and headed for the iron gate, it had already been half an hour since she’d left Brenna.

Once outside, Hannah kept to the shadows. The fire was still burning, though it was significantly smaller than it had been before; it was clear that Diana and the others were finally having success in putting it out. They also seemed to have driven Drexler and his cohorts away, as Hannah could no longer hear even a trace of drunken laughter. Still, the smell of ash and charred soil was so strong that she had to fight coughing all the way to the gate, even as the path led her farther and farther away from the blaze.

She ignored the pain in her lungs. She was almost there.

She opened the iron gate with Brenna’s key, then shut it as quietly as she could.

Hannah hurried along the dirt road, tracing the route that she had taken so many times in the community van. It took much longer by foot – easily a forty-minute trek. Had Tory even figured out how to get into town? She could be even worse off than Hannah feared – she could be crouched in the countryside somewhere, her fingers and toes turning blue, the snow beating mercilessly down upon her. Hannah shoved her own fingers into her coat pockets, refusing to allow herself to be cold, refusing to allow herself to be anything except _faster_ , faster, almost there –

The old blue farmhouse that marked the first residence in Beringold stood out against its starry backdrop, black mountains rising up behind it. Hannah glanced down at each of the three roads that connected it to the town. There was the one she’d been down before, of course, the one that led to the shops – but she realized that if Tory had gone that way, she’d have turned straight back after discovering where it went. There was no chance she’d find her father sitting on the stoop of a Blue Ridge tour company.

That left the other two roads. Which would Tory have chosen? One of them led to what appeared to be a wide green field with a distant cottage at the end of it – might Tory think her father would live in a place like that? Or would she be more inclined to go for the last road, which seemed to end in unremarkable cluster of houses?

Tory had never known a house that wasn’t a log cabin. Hannah had no idea.

She ended up selecting the last road, mostly because it looked more populated, and if Tory had gone that way, she’d likely be in more danger than if she’d wandered down a series of uninhabited fields. Hannah was so focused on what was ahead of her, keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of movement in the dark, that she didn’t notice the heavy footsteps behind her until it was too late.

_“You!”_

Hairy hands grabbed at her shoulders from the back. For a breathless second, Hannah was hoisted off her feet, and then –

Then she found herself staring into the grinning face of Forgan. He appeared to be alone. His pistol glinted from inside his pocket.

“I thought I recognized you,” he hissed. “Little bitch who wouldn’t shut up in the shop. New around here, aren’t you? Well. You’d have had to get to know me eventually.”

Hannah fought with everything she had. She threw wild punches at his broad chest and kicked him as hard as she could and shouted loudly and hoarsely for help, but it was no use. Nobody came. Forgan dragged her backward and pinned her neck against the brick wall of one of the houses, constricting her windpipe. Hannah began gasping for breath. She had no air left to scream with.

“The question is,” said Forgan, and she could smell what she was sure was celebratory champagne on his breath, “What’s the _best_ way for us to acquaint ourselves with each other? There’re a number of ways we could go about it. What do you think, little miss?”

He moved his hands so that he was holding her by the armpits instead. Hannah coughed painfully, gathered her strength, and kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could. He was so stocky that he hardly winced.

“Feisty,” he said, grinning. “Plucky. I like that.”

He ran a hungry finger across her collarbone. Chills erupted down Hannah’s spine, but she used his second of distraction to plunge her free arm into her coat pocket and draw out the set of keys Brenna had given her.

She shoved the metal points into his chest with the last bit of strength she had – then, in a flash of inspiration, she bit down hard on his arm. She tasted blood; she bit harder –

_“What the fuck!”_

Forgan yelped and took an angry step backwards; his other arm slipped from the wall and held Hannah there somewhat less forcefully than before. But she knew she couldn’t run yet. She knew she would have only one shot.

“I’ve just turned you into a werewolf,” she said, as mildly as she could, though she wanted to keep biting him – kicking him – hurting him – until he was nothing but a pulpy mess on the ground. “I bet you didn’t know that we can spread it while we’re still human. We can, if it’s a day or two before the full moon. Once our senses get stronger.”

This was, of course, total nonsense, but she was banking on the idea that he wouldn’t know that. His face instantly turned an odd kind of green.

“Give it ten minutes,” said Hannah quietly. “It’ll hurt like nothing’s ever hurt before. Your whole body will feel like it’s freezing from the inside. You won’t be able to stop shaking. And then… tomorrow night…”

Forgan stared down at the wound on his forearm, which was streaked with blood and already beginning to swell. The instant he glanced away from her face – the instant he began to show more interest in his dubious future as a werewolf than in keeping Hannah against the wall – she tore away. She yanked her body away from him, feet slamming against the pavement, heart racing, soul screaming –

She ran until he was out of sight, until she couldn’t hear his footsteps behind her – he was too drunk to run very far, she thought, but she wanted to stay as invisible as possible until she was sure. She hid behind a bush, swathed in shadows. It was more important now to find Tory than ever – but Hannah couldn’t risk getting caught again: she was still overwhelmed with nausea at what had almost happened to her. She wanted to curl up in a warm corner somewhere until she could forget the acrid smell of Forgan’s breath and the feeling of his hairy hands on her neck.

But she couldn’t. She looked at the road ahead and noticed a tree in someone’s yard that she thought she could climb, despite the snow. She would sit there for a few minutes and wait to see if Forgan came looking for her. If he didn’t, she could jump down again and resume her search.

It was only once she was several branches up that she became aware of a small figure with a blonde ponytail moving slowly along the sidewalk. The figure paused, then drifted over to the house Hannah was in front of.

“TORY!” hissed Hannah, in as loud a whisper as she dared. But Tory was focused on her task. She rang the doorbell of the house several times, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest.

After a moment, an angry-looking woman in a bathrobe peered out. She gave Tory an incredulous look.

“You’re one of _those_ children.”

“Um –”

The woman didn’t give Tory time to speak. “Is this some kind of emergency? Do you need help?”

“Not exactly –”

She raised her eyebrows. “Then why on earth did you ring my doorbell at this godforsaken hour?”

Tory cringed visibly. “I just… I just need to ask… does my dad live here?”

“Your _dad._ ”

“Yes,” said Tory uncertainly. “I’m going to live with him. His name is Gavin Marrock.”

“Nobody here but me,” snapped the woman. “I can call the police if you’d like. I’m sure _they’d_ be able to find him.”

She made to slam the door, but Tory stuck out a shoe so that it stopped fast.

“No, please! I swear, I know I’m getting close. Please just tell me if you know him? I’m _sure_ he lives somewhere around here, I’ve tried a bunch of different houses –”

“Move your foot,” said the woman sharply. Startled, Tory did.

The door did slam this time, and Hannah watched as Tory closed her eyes for a moment, shivered, and turned toward the next house. She walked until she was right beneath Hannah’s tree.

“Tory,” said Hannah.

Tory stopped dead. When she noticed Hannah, she did nothing but blink for several long seconds. The expression behind her eyes was betrayed; haunted; more a little bit lost.

“How – how did you know where I was?”

“I guessed.” Hannah leapt out of the tree. Her shoulder ached a little. Forgan must have bruised it.

“I didn’t want anyone to worry,” said Tory. “I was going to write Mom a letter.”

Hannah scanned the road for signs of Forgan. Unless he was lying in wait somewhere, he had probably turned around and gone home – no doubt to examine himself further for signs of impending lycanthropy. She hoped.

“We have to _go_.”

“But I can’t find him,” said Tory, glancing back at the footprints she’d made. “I keep knocking on doors, but nobody’s even heard of him. People keep trying to call the police – I’ve had to run and hide a bunch of times. I don’t know if they’re lying to me or not.”

Hannah sighed. “I don’t think they are. Your dad… he wouldn’t be here, he wouldn’t be in Beringold. Not if he was smart. And from what you’ve told me, it sounds like he was a smart guy.”

“He was,” said Tory. “He’d give me books, and we’d talk about science, and he’d teach me constellations. He got to go to college before he was bitten. He knew everything in the world.”

“Beringold isn’t a good place for people like us. There are better places. Where there aren’t people like Drexler.”

“But I didn’t think Dad would have _cared!_ I thought for _sure_ he’d have stayed close by, Hannah. He wouldn’t have gone far because – because he’d have been waiting for me! He’d have waited until Mom let me visit!”

Hannah looked away. Tory didn’t need to see that she’d noticed her crying.

“Wherever he is, I promise you it’s a better place to visit than Beringold,” she said. “I’ll bet you he’s in Curnow. That’s where I used to live. It’s almost normal to be a werewolf there. And it’s a good place. With good people.”

“How far away is it from here?”

“Hours and hours,” said Hannah sadly.

“I don’t _want_ to be hours and hours away,” said Tory in a wavery voice. “I want… I just want everything to be like it was before. And I know it’s impossible, I know I can’t change it, I know I’m being stupid. But I thought… if I found him…”

It was the kind of moment where Hannah knew she should hug Tory, but she found that she couldn’t. Her arms hung stupidly at her sides, unhelpful, while Tory blinked until her eyes stopped shining. One or both of them was too old for hugs tonight. One or both of them was too cold, too tired, too angry.

“We have to go back,” said Hannah at last. “Any of these houses could be Drexler’s, and – and there are other people wandering around.”

“They won’t hurt us,” whispered Tory. “I’ll hurt them first.”

They walked back in silence. To Hannah’s vast relief, there was no trace of Forgan or anyone else on the road. But she didn’t relax until they were well out of Beringold and the iron gate had risen up to meet them in the distance.

It seemed impossible to Hannah that it could still be night, that the sun could still be dangling uselessly below the horizon. They wound their way back to the blue farmhouse and the brown dirt road, past fields and patches of forest and still more farms. They kept walking until they reached Rumon, where they found a small group of people waiting for them.

***

Diana snatched open the gate the instant they arrived. If Hannah had known that their disappearance would be noticed, she wasn’t sure what she’d have expected. Concern, maybe; demands for explanations; maybe some tears. What she wouldn’t have expected was fury. Especially the kind of chilling, abject fury that was now blazing out at them full force, like a star about to explode.

 _“In,”_ hissed Diana, ushering them through the gate and slamming it closed behind them. “I don’t know _what_ you were thinking; you had everyone worried sick; we’d only just put out the fire; and Amelia arrived in the tunnel to find that nobody knew where the two of you were –”

It took Hannah a moment to absorb that Brenna kept her promise, that she hadn’t betrayed them – that their disappearance had been noticed only because the fight was over, and the people hiding in the tunnel had been allowed to leave. She also realized that this meant everyone knew they were missing. Hannah wondered what Aria, Cynthia, and Bram thought.

Amelia grabbed Tory and wrapped her in her arms. Tory hugged her back – somewhat gingerly, Hannah thought.

Amelia didn’t give the same treatment to Hannah, though; she glared at her instead. With a jolt, Hannah realized that to anyone who didn’t know the full story, it would look as though Hannah had deliberately led Tory into danger.

“What on earth were you doing?” snapped Sabine, who seemed to have been serving as support for Amelia. “Do you have any idea what it was like for her? The last time anyone remembered seeing the two of you was just after you arrived in the tunnel.”

“And then I realized my keys were gone,” said Amelia, still holding Tory tightly, as though afraid she would dissolve. “I sent people out searching – they’re wandering through the snow as we speak, hoping you haven’t been killed –”

Tory took several gasping breaths of air and shivered. “I just wanted – I just wanted –”

“Look, they’re safe now,” said Gwyn, who looked shaken. “I’m sure they were just scared – tunnels can induce terrible claustrophobia – and they didn’t know if we were okay, either. Maybe they should just go home, get some sleep. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

 _“No,”_ said Tory, shivering violently now. “I need Mom to know – you can’t blame Hannah – it was me, I was looking for Dad, I wanted to talk to him – Hannah came after me –”

“You were looking for your _father?”_ said Amelia.

Diana turned, very slowly. “Did you find him?”

Tory shook her head, but Diana’s expression did not change.

“I want you to think very carefully before you answer me,” she said, and her eyes were scorching now. “Why were you trying to find your father? What were you hoping he could do for you?”

“She misses him, of course,” said Gwyn, in a low but defiant voice; Hannah thought it was surprisingly brave of him. Scarlett seemed to think so, too, for she backed away a little and hovered near Amelia instead. “She hasn’t seen him in years.”

“I want Victoria to answer me,” said Diana. “Why would a twelve-year-old girl who has never been away from the community go searching for her father on the first night Rumon has been attacked in over thirty years? After all, she could have taken her mother’s keys and slipped away any other night, when she was confident her family was sleeping. Why tonight?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” said Tory desperately. “I only wanted –”

“Let me take her home,” said Amelia. “I’ll put her to bed, give her some warm milk.”

“The only reason I can think of,” Diana plowed on, “is that she was _looking_ for something. Something she isn’t supposed to have. Something that might take time to procure.”

Amelia let out a small moan. Tory shook her head mutely.

“There are a great many things the outside world has that Rumon doesn’t, but there’s only one that’s associated with her father,” said Diana. She gave a grim smile. “I’m sorry, Amelia, but I’ve got to test them. If there’s one thing I promised myself last time, it was that I can’t let this sort of thing happen under my nose again.”

Ignoring Amelia’s ashen face, Diana grabbed Hannah with one white-knuckled hand and Tory with the other.

“We’re going to my office, girls. The rest of you can head home.”

She marched them onward, up the stairs and into the room that Hannah had arrived in all those weeks ago. For the first time in hours, Hannah felt warm, though the feeling instantly gave way to a stabbing sensation in her fingers and toes. However, the pain didn’t come close to the apprehension she felt. What on earth did Diana mean by “testing” them?

Without another word, Diana forced them into chairs, walked up to a shelf, and whipped out the same medical kit that she had used on Hannah almost two months before. She dug around inside it until she had produced two needles and a heavy sheet of paper. Unlike the paper she had used the last time, this one was a sickly shade of yellow.

“Fingers,” Diana demanded. Bewildered, Hannah withdrew one of her still-thawing hands and held it out for Diana to stab.

She experienced a split second of pain before Diana shoved her outstretched finger onto the yellow paper. It was very odd to see dark green liquid leaking from her skin instead of red. Diana gave a small, satisfied nod and turned to Tory, who flinched as her blood was pressed onto another part of the paper.

Hannah’s heart seemed to stop as she realized what was about to happen.

Unlike Hannah’s blood, Tory’s began to darken. It sank into the paper until it was black as the sky outside.

“Moon Pills,” spat Diana.

She hurled the paper away, letting it fall onto the floor, and grasped Tory’s shoulder so tightly that she cried out with pain. “You’ve had Moon Pills, you little liar. You _did_ see your father – there’s no point in denying it now. What did he say? Is he glad Drexler attacked us? Did he help plan it?”

Tory whimpered as she tried to wriggle out of Diana’s grasp, but her grip only grew stronger. Tory shut her eyes.

“I – I – so what if he gave me one?” she wheezed, still trying to free herself. “You banished him, he can’t give me any more – ow –”

“Oh, he gave you more than one,” said Diana, gesturing at the yellow paper on the ground. “You wouldn’t get a result like that with only one of those things in your system. No, you’ve been taking them for weeks, haven’t you? Although the question of _how_ is something I am quite anxious to discover.”

“I didn’t!” said Tory desperately. “I _didn’t_ , I swear it was only one –”

“I’ll have to decide what to do with you,” said Diana, and Hannah thought she saw her eyes gleam. “It’ll have to be an example to the others – people can’t start thinking the rules have changed just because we’re under threat, and certainly not just because you’re young.” Diana’s breathing seemed to grow heavier. “I have an idea… a uniquely useful idea, I think… but…”

Hannah jumped up and – without thinking about what she was going to do – hurled herself in front of Tory in a leap that made the floors shake. The movement surprised Diana so much that her hand loosened from Tory’s shoulder and swung aggressively back to her side. She looked at Hannah with narrowed eyes.

“Tory’s lying,” said Hannah. “She never found her father. I gave her the Moon Pills. I’ve been doing it all month.”

“Hannah, _don’t,”_ said Tory, squeezing her eyes shut again. “Diana, it isn’t true –”

“It is true,” said Hannah. “If you want proof, go ahead and search my room. I’ll tell you where they are.”

She hoped Diana couldn’t sense how painfully her heart was thudding.

Diana stared between her and Tory. “You’re saying you smuggled them in for _her?”_

“No. I lied to you. I’m a Type Three. I took them myself the first month. But then I offered them to Tory, because she told me…” Hannah stopped and shook her head. “Because I wanted to.”

Diana looked Hannah up and down. For a second, Hannah thought she caught the ghost of a smile on her face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“Well,” said Diana, “ _that_ certainly changes things. You haven’t had any yourself?”

Hannah shook her head. This time, Diana did smile, and smiled widely.

“It’s almost five in the morning, isn’t it?” she said, more to Tory than to Hannah. “You must be falling asleep on your feet.”

Tory only gazed at her.

“We’ll have a little chat about the consequences of Hannah’s actions tomorrow morning,” said Diana pleasantly. “Hannah, make sure you’re ready by noon – or I’ll make sure for you. Victoria, I sincerely apologize for losing my temper. I hope I never see you in here again.”

The abrupt change in Diana was more disconcerting for Hannah than anything else Diana had done that night. All she could do was nod and follow Tory as Diana escorted them back outside.

***

Despite the millions of things that were scrabbling for attention at the back of Hannah’s mind, she fell asleep easily, pausing only to hang her wet clothes on her radiator before collapsing into bed. She told herself she didn’t care what happened to her the next day. She was tired enough that it only took a little pushing to get her brain to believe it.

Her dreams were strange, dark bursts of energy, full of colors that didn’t exist even after the full moon. In one dream, Tory was hiding inside a glass cage while a wolf with Topher’s eyes watched Hannah from afar. In another, Brenna and Hannah’s mother stood on opposite sides of a gaping canyon, oblivious to the fact that Hannah was trying to build them a bridge. In the last, Hannah was alone in a room with heavy walls, enormous windows, and no door. The windows didn’t open, and they wouldn’t smash.

Hannah’s alarm woke her up ten minutes before noon. In the night she had put her head under her pillow, and she was drenched in sweat.

She checked her window to make sure Diana wasn’t approaching, then threw on a pair of jeans and her warmest sweatshirt. She didn’t bother brushing her hair. She was going to lose herself tonight. It didn’t matter what she looked like.

Only Amelia was sitting at the table when Hannah approached. With Tory’s confession, Amelia appeared to have forgiven her, but it was immediately clear that Diana hadn’t told her anything about what had happened in her office. Hannah supposed she was saving that particular bombshell for later. Amelia gave Hannah a faint smile as she approached. Hannah made herself smile back, her stomach twisting with guilt.

She kept her eyes on her meatball stew until a sharp knock came at the door.

Amelia got there before Hannah did. Hannah stood behind her, observing how different Diana looked now that she had gotten a good night’s sleep, despite her concealed black eye. Her hair was shining again, pinned back into its usual glossy bun; there were more no lines of wild fury etched into her face. In fact, if Hannah hadn’t known better, she would never have guessed that Diana was a werewolf at all. Just standing in the hall was making Hannah wobbly, while Diana stood straight and elegant and imposing.

“I’d like to speak to Hannah, please, if that’s all right,” she said. “Maybe in your library?”

Amelia showed Diana into the library without comment and left them to it.

Neither of them sat down. Diana’s chilly gaze found Hannah’s, and her smile did not crease her eyes. She tilted her head upwards, and said, “So.”

“So,” said Hannah.

“I asked you on your first day here if you understood what was expected of you. You told me that you did. I also told you that we trusted people at Rumon. And you didn’t object.”

“No.”

“Now I discover that you were lying to me. That you’ve been breaking our laws since you first arrived. You agree that’s what you’ve done?”

Hannah nodded.

“So,” said Diana. “Have you packed?”

Hannah closed her eyes, trying to rid herself of the feeling that the floor was dropping out from under her. She had been expecting this since she had spoken up in Tory’s defense; had known that Diana would have to banish her, that she would never relax the rule on Moon Pills just because Hannah was seventeen and new. But it still made every part of her ache.

“Not yet,” said Hannah, in as strong a voice as she could manage. “But I’ll be out of here the second I feel up to it tomorrow. I’ll call my brothers, and they’ll come pick me up.”

Tom and Andrew… she would see them again, after all this time. Could she forgive them? She realized that she no longer _felt_ angry at them, but the thought of calling them made her feel like she was sliding backward into childhood. Into a world where she no longer fit.

“No,” said Diana.

Hannah shook her head. An uncomfortable pounding had resumed in her temples. “What?”

“No,” Diana repeated. “You’ll pack now. And you’ll leave immediately after.”

“I can’t,” said Hannah. “It’s the full moon tonight, remember?”

Diana smiled.

“I haven’t _had_ any Moon Pills,” said Hannah, in case Diana had failed to understand. “I gave them to Tory. And there isn’t enough time for me to get home. I don’t have any transport, and it’d be too late by the time I called someone –”

Diana stood and gave Hannah a small push toward the library door. Hannah looked at her in disbelief.

“You’re the answer to our problems,” said Diana quietly. “The perfect revenge. You’ll find somewhere in Beringold to hole up until the moon rises, and then you’ll give them what they deserve – for all of us. I don’t care who you bite. Drexler would be ideal, of course, but I’m not sure I want him getting underfoot at town meetings. Take your pick. It’s a choice many of us would love to make.”

“You can’t _do_ that.” Hannah clutched at one of the bookshelves for support. “You wouldn’t get away with it – they’d shut down Rumon. They’d lock you up –”

“They won’t,” said Diana, smiling, though her eyes remained still and cool. “No lawyer will be able to find Rumon liable. You broke our laws with full knowledge of what you were doing. As such, we have the legal right to banish you tonight. You haven’t belonged here since you took your first Moon Pill on Rumon territory. You never really were one of us.”

“Maybe I wasn’t.” Hannah now felt so sick that the shelves seemed to be closing in around her. “But I won’t do it. I _won’t.”_

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” Diana took several strides forward, so that she was looking back at Hannah from the doorway. “You’ve got a few hours to play with. You’ll find a patch of forest somewhere. After all, it worked out for Brenna, didn’t it?”

She marched toward the dining room, where Amelia was waiting, leaving Hannah alone.


	27. The Wolf

Hannah didn’t leave the library until her vertigo stopped and she could lift her head from her arms without the world going flying. From a distance, she could hear Amelia talking to Diana at a rapid, frenzied speed, and Diana murmuring calm answers back at her. Then she heard a shriek that undoubtedly belonged to Tory.

Hannah clenched her hands into fists and forced herself to rise. She had barely managed two steps out the door when Tory sprinted at her, trembling all over and engulfing Hannah in a bear hug.

“She’s making you leave, isn’t she? _Isn’t she?_ She _can’t –_ I’m going to tell her she can’t – she _can’t_ kick you out too –”

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” said Hannah, unable to meet her eyes. “I have to go. I don’t have much time.”

Now that she’d had a few minutes to let Diana’s words sink in, Hannah felt nothing. It was as though someone had clubbed her over the head and run away laughing while Hannah struggled to remember who she was. Everything was numb, and the parts that weren’t were shivering.

“I have to pack,” she managed to croak, and she ran, Tory trailing after her. She was dimly aware that Tory was crying.

Somewhere along the way, Amelia appeared, and Hannah was conscious of the way she held Tory’s hand and began to follow her, too. Hannah forced herself to ignore them. The important thing now was to pack only what she needed and then get as far away from people as she could. Or perhaps she could get to a hospital – but a hospital that could accommodate a fully transformed werewolf would probably be impossible to find out here. Curnow was the primary werewolf hospital in the state for a reason –

 _“Hannah,”_ said Amelia. “Hannah, will you listen to me for a second?”

Hannah reluctantly turned to see Amelia’s serious, owl-like face.

“You had no business giving Tory those Moon Pills,” she said. “I can’t pretend I’m not frightened of what this full moon will mean for her, or how it will affect her later. But I forgive you. I understand how hard it must have been. I wish I’d known. I might have done something to help.”

Hannah didn’t look at her. She concentrated on shoving items into her duffel bag. She wouldn’t need to bring much. A heavy bag would make it harder to move quickly.

Amelia was still talking. “I think I understand why you did it. You have principles. You acted on them. That’s admirable. In a lot of ways, you remind me of someone else I know.”

Hannah didn’t want to hear it. It didn’t _matter_ whether or not she had done the right thing. Unless she was extraordinarily lucky, something terrible was going to happen tonight, and it would be all her fault. _That_ was what her stupidity had resulted in. She had nothing to be proud of.

Tory was sobbing. “She can’t leave,” she said. “Mom, she can’t –”

“You’ll see each other again,” said Amelia. Her voice cracked slightly, but she cleared her throat and went on as if it hadn’t happened. “When you’re older. When you’re all grown up… you can visit each other in Beringold.”

“But she’s like my _sister!_ And sisters aren’t supposed to leave you!”

Hannah couldn’t take it. She dropped her bag and turned to Tory, placing her hands on her shoulders.

“Listen,” she said. “Listen – I’m sorry – I’m _so_ sorry, Tory. But you have to listen to me. You’ve got to keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got to keep trying to find stuff out. You’ve got to keep watching and listening and don’t let _anyone_ keep secrets from you, you understand?”

Tory nodded fiercely, despite the tears in her eyes. “I won’t,” she said, curling her small arms around Hannah’s waist. “I promise.”

***

Somebody was there to meet Hannah at the gate, but it wasn’t Diana. It was Gwyn. He was leaning wearily against a tree with his customary mug of black coffee, Scarlett floating closer to his face than usual. The dead, smoky smell that now pervaded all the outside space made Scarlett’s presence seem especially appropriate. Gwyn gave Hannah a sober wave when he saw her.

“I asked Amelia to lend me her key,” he said. “I wanted to see you out.”

Hannah shrugged and looked down.

“It’ll be all right,” he said, although he didn’t look entirely convinced. “You realize she’s given you a chance.”

“A chance,” Hannah repeated.

“Yes. You still have a few hours. If I were you… your best bet is probably to use someone’s cellar. Keep the wolf underground.”

“Right,” said Hannah dully. “So I’ll just go from house to house, knocking on doors – you really think someone will let me in if I explain the situation? They’re not going to run away screaming?”

Gwyn looked away. “It’s worth a try. You’ll figure it out. I’ve known you long enough to know that.”

Hannah just stood there for a moment. She knew that she should get going, that every second was another chance for the wolf to realize Diana’s goal, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind – something that had been trying to escape for weeks. Something she had been holding back.

“You know Rose,” she said, before she could stop herself. “Rose Tarry.”

Gwyn whirled around so fast that Scarlett whipped twice around his neck and stayed that way, like a python in a death grip.

“I overheard Mrs. Robeson. Rose was your girlfriend. The one you left because of Scarlett.”

Gwyn merely looked at Hannah, his mouth open.

“You should go _back_ ,” she said, with a sudden burst of determination she didn’t know she still had in her. “Mrs. Robeson said you should choose – she said it’s up to you, if you go back to Rose or if you keep worrying about Scarlett all the time – but I don’t agree. I don’t think you should _get_ a choice. Because if you’re going to keep writing her letters, and if you keep saying you’re in love with her, you’re either a much worse human being than I think you are, or you’re a great big coward. And she doesn’t _deserve_ a great big coward.”

“Hannah,” said Gwyn slowly, “You should really –”

“So should you,” said Hannah fiercely. “Go _back._ You don’t belong here.”

She wasn’t going to get a chance to tell him again. He needed to know.

Gwyn finally glanced back at her, with a look so earnest it was painful. Scarlett slid along his back and bobbed up and down with the breeze.

“Tell her – tell her I’m sorry,” he said. Hannah suddenly realized that he hadn’t slept all night. “I am. I always have been.”

He twisted the key in the gate. Hannah thought her chances of seeing Rose again to tell her were close to nil, but she promised Gwyn she’d pass on the message and watched in an adrenaline-fueled stupor as the key clicked and the iron gate swung open.

Hannah looked at what lay before her – at the frigid valley between the mountains – and ran headlong into the unknown.

***

But running wouldn’t get her very far if she didn’t know what she was running to. She knew Gwyn meant well, but every instinct was screaming at her to stay away from people, and she definitely wouldn’t be able to do that if she was walking around town asking people to use their basements. So she decided on a different plan.

As soon as Rumon was out of sight, she stationed herself under a tree and tried to bring the Internet up on her phone. She needed to find the number for a taxi. She wasn’t sure how she would describe her location – a dirt road in the middle of nowhere? – but it was the best plan she had. She could ask the taxi driver to take her somewhere remote, somewhere far away from Beringold or any place like it. Then, when they had driven a few hours, she could jump out of the car and find somewhere to hide…

When it turned out she couldn’t access the Internet in that part of the mountains, Hannah told herself it didn’t matter. She would call the operator – surely they had taxi numbers in their directory. But the phone didn’t ring. Apparently she had no service, either.

She fought to stay calm, reviewing her options. There would be service in Beringold, or at least a phone she could use. But the idea of walking the forty minutes it took to get there _again_ made Hannah feel weaker and shakier at the very thought. What was more, the moon was rising rapidly, and with it, her strength was waning. Hannah couldn’t imagine what condition she would be in when she finally reached Beringold. Would she be able to get out of town in time? What if she fainted and somebody took her home, unaware of what would happen if she was left alone for too long?

She couldn’t risk that.

So it seemed that she would be following Diana’s advice after all. Looking for a patch of woods. Hoping that it was nowhere near a place where someone lived. She had five hours… that, at least, was something…

Hannah breathed on her hands, rubbed them together, and started to walk.

But even walking wasn’t easy. Hannah had never in her life had to do any kind of physical activity on the full moon – nothing so much as a gym class, or even a jog around the neighborhood. Her pace slowed from weary to crawling, because she kept having to stop and catch her breath. She hadn’t eaten, and she didn’t have any water with her, which made everything worse.

When she looked at her phone again, she found that an hour had passed. She doubted she’d even made it a mile, and her teeth had started to chatter beyond her control. There were some trees nearby, and the dirt road had disappeared… she sat down and leaned up against an oak tree. Was there any chance she could transform here? Would anyone be in danger?

She had no idea.

But a mile was only a mile… the road wasn’t far away… it wasn’t impossible that someone might come wandering in this direction, or that the wolf might smell what Hannah couldn’t see and find people to bite. Maybe she could head back to the road and wait for a car to show up. Maybe she could persuade them to take her further out. But she’d definitely have to lie about why… and depending on how long it took the car to get there, she might only be endangering more people…

Her head was spinning. The exhaustion she had felt while walking didn’t seem to be getting any better now that she was taking a break. She didn’t feel cold anymore, either. Instead, her skin was burning, boiling, as if someone had pressed a sizzling-hot iron to every inch of it. She licked her lips, which had gone numb, and the chill of her tongue made her shudder.

She knew the truth then, as she’d known it in the back of her mind since she had started walking.

She wasn’t going to make it.

And it was her fault. All of it.

This wasn’t some silly accident. It was a whole chain of events, one that had been entirely orchestrated by Hannah herself – not her parents, or Brenna, or even Diana. None of it could have happened if Hannah hadn’t been such an idiot.

If she’d turned in her Moon Pills. If she hadn’t been so worried about Tory. If she hadn’t run away from home. If she hadn’t ignored the wolf. If she’d just _talked_ to someone – anyone – about any of it—

She didn’t realize she’d started crying until her hands were wet and her breath was making strange shuddering gasps and the entire world had turned blotchy.

She hadn’t cried since she was eight.

She had vowed never to cry again.

***

The tree was rough, and the bark poked holes in her back.

She was freezing to death and melting into a flame-tipped pool of her own skin.

She told herself a story, because she couldn’t help it, and it was the only story she knew.

_Once upon a time there was a girl named Hannah._

_She started off normal, as normal as anyone, but one day, normality was stolen from her. After that, there were times when Hannah was a monster._

_Not many. But enough._

She had been so stupid. She had been so convinced she could learn to control the wolf, that she could stop the Moon Pills from failing under the right circumstances. When it was really the wolf that had been controlling her all along.

_She thought she was safe._

_She told herself things to make it true._

_She told herself hundreds of stories._

_She pretended that the monster wasn’t part of her, but it was, and one night – a cold night, when the full moon hung heavy in the sky – the monster came for her._

She was so cold. So hot. So – _gone_ , almost completely. Was she even awake anymore? A shadow appeared above her head; she could see its dark reflection against the forest floor. But she didn’t look up. If night was falling, she didn’t want to know. Not until it forced her to.

_The monster took everything she had. It took her parents first – desperately and hungrily, because they were the first to fight. Then it took her brothers, who each fought in their own way, and each fell on their own swords. Finally, it took her friends. It cast her into the dark and sent her running to a place where far more monsters lived._

_Until she was surrounded on all sides. Alone with their shadows…_

The shadow above her head seemed to be expanding, as if dark clouds were preparing a private storm. She finally allowed herself to look at them, peering out from the cracks between her fingers.

Eidolons. They were eidolons. They swept around her, dancing.

_…and that was the end, the true end, the one that everyone should have seen coming. Because nobody can help you when you become a monster. Other monsters will find you. Other monsters will breed inside you. They will take what has belonged to them since the beginning, and they will swallow it whole._

_They will take everything that you love._

***

She couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t stop crying and she couldn’t see anything but the eidolons and her hands were like ten strands of icicles on the scorched metal of her face.

It was going to end here. The real Hannah would never move from this spot. The eidolons would stay with her until the moon rose, until the wolf part of herself became the whole part of herself. Until its teeth found human flesh and ended her human life. There would be nothing more after that. Nothing worth having.

She closed her eyes.

_The wolf was looking at her. Hannah had jumped out of the wheelbarrow and come face to face with its strange golden eyes. Their eyes met. It leapt –_

There were four eidolons now.

_“Tom – my leg – it hurts –”_

_“It’s only been a few minutes. Surely that can’t be enough time to –”_

_“They said the blood starts to absorb the poison in seconds –”_

_And they locked her in a room, and she was cold, and her head hurt, and she had lost herself already, though she didn’t know what was coming –_

DING.

A sudden chirping noise jerked Hannah’s thoughts backward. Her heart jolted.

The noise had come from her phone. Her _phone_. She hadn’t thought to check if there was service here, a mile on – could there be? If there was, that meant there was a town nearby. And if there was a town nearby, things were even worse than she had thought –

With great effort, because her hands had begun to shake violently now, she removed her phone from her pocket. There was a text from Tom.

_Someone named Tory called Topher, and he called me. We’re coming to get you._

Hannah stared. It couldn’t be.

Another ding.

_Not the parents – they’d be freaking. Me and Andrew. Topher and Harry. Sit tight and don’t panic. We’re coming._

***

Hannah couldn’t type, so she called. There was only one bar for service, and it kept blinking, but Tom picked up on the first ring.

“Hannah? Han, please tell me it’s you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, in a voice she didn’t recognize. “I’m so sorry, Tom, I’m so sorry –”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Try to stop crying so I can understand you. Do you know where you are?”

“Just some woods somewhere – by the road – I don’t know – but _how –_ and how did you – and how could Tory –”

She had forgotten how messy tears were, how embarrassing they were, how they made you want to hug the first person who _understood_ and never let go.

“She said you didn’t open your Christmas package,” said Tom. “I put one of those cheapo phones in there – I read about how phones aren’t really allowed at Rumon, so I thought you should have it just in case. Stored it with a few numbers. And I guess she recognized Topher’s name and called him…”

She could tell he was trying not to sound affronted that Tory hadn’t known who _he_ was. It made her want him there even more. Even though that was the last thing in the world she should want.

“But there’s no way you’re going to be able to –”

“Andrew has the password for your phone – don’t ask me how; he won’t tell me – and he says he can do some kind of weird hacker locator thing with it. So stay where you are, you hear me? If you’re somewhere with no signal, we won’t be able to find you.”

“But Topher and Harry, they can’t – Tom, you know they _can’t_ – and you’re not going to be able to get me home in time, and _I don’t have anywhere to go_ –”

“First things first. Topher and Harry didn’t give us a choice – said they’d come with or without us, and transform in the car if they had to. It’ll be fine. And we’ll figure the other thing out when we get there, okay? We’re talking it through right now. Stay put, keep warm, and don’t worry.”

“But it’s not safe – it’s not safe for _you_ –”

“We’ve already been driving for an hour,” said Tom firmly, and he hung up before Hannah could say anything else.

***

Hannah didn’t know how long she waited. She knew that it took roughly three and a half hours to get to Rumon from Curnow, and she knew that she wasn’t going to have much time left when – or if – they found her, but she didn’t check the time again. She didn’t want to feel hope only to lose it again. The eidolons were still there, and the monster was still inside her. She could not afford to forget either of those things.

The hot-cold feeling from before got stronger. She was shuddering into her coat now, folding her hands into her sleeves, breathing hard and fast. Eventually she just burrowed her head into her chest and curled up at the foot of the tree stump. The eidolons dipped lower to join her there, and Hannah closed her eyes. She was only vaguely convinced that she would ever open them again.

When she heard the crunching of tires on dirt, she was sure she was hallucinating.

“Hannah? _Hannah?”_

“It says she’s here. Literally right here.”

“She did say she was in the woods, right? You said you couldn’t hear her very well –”

Footsteps. The slamming of car doors. Hannah’s heart began to race. Although they still clung to her, the eidolons slipped back a few inches, farther away than they had been in hours.

“I’m here,” she called hoarsely. “I’m here.”

And then they were running toward her, the four of them – their arms held out to her, their faces bursting into enormous smiles – and tears were coursing down her face – and she was crying into Tom’s shoulder, into Andrew’s hair. Harry was there, running as fast as he could – Topher was sitting beside her, his hand clasping hers –

“I missed you,” she sobbed. “I missed you so much.”

“Can you get up?” said Andrew. “We’ll help you.”

And there were hands, warm hands, lifting her off the ground, taking her bag, pushing her into the heat of the car, piling blanket upon blanket on top of her. She wanted to lie there and sleep forever, with her brothers in the front seat and her friends in the back, like a protective shield around her.

But she knew she couldn’t.

“I have to find somewhere,” she said.

Tom and Andrew exchanged glances.

“Yeah,” said Tom eventually. “You do. And you don’t have long. We, um – we underestimated how long it would take to get here. Mountain roads are rough.”

“How much time?”

“Forty-five minutes,” said Topher, his eyebrows creased.

“You definitely can’t stay here,” said Andrew, fiddling with the car’s GPS. “There’s a town only a mile away. Beringold. The wolf would find it.”

So much for Hannah’s grand plan to run.

“Maybe a hospital?” she said. “But I know there isn’t one in Beringold.”

“We looked that up before we left,” said Andrew. “There’s no way, even if I speed. The nearest one’s almost forty miles out, and I’m not even sure what they’d do with you. It looked really small on the website…”

“The car, then,” said Tom. “If we locked it. The rest of us – we could keep guard outside.”

“She’d destroy it,” said Andrew. “We’d have no way of getting home.”

“But it’s better than anything else we’ve thought of so far. We have to think of something now, and if that’s the best idea we have –”

“I’d smash the windows,” Hannah said, putting her hand on the glass, feeling how thin it was. “I’d get out. It wouldn’t work.”

“Okay,” said Harry. “We can’t use the car, we can’t stay here, and we can’t get to a hospital. What does that leave?”

“Thirty-five minutes,” said Topher, glancing down at his watch.

The eidolons began to draw closer to Hannah again. She hadn’t noticed that they had followed her into the car until that moment, but now that she had, they were all that she could see. The pounding in her head grew more intense.

“Maybe if Hannah did transform here – and Harry and I transformed outside too? If we tried to calm her down, control her a little –”

“You can’t,” said Hannah, remembering the Type Threes she had seen at Rumon. “You’re sick, and you’re tired, and you wouldn’t be able to control me. One mistake, and I’d get away.”

“It’s too risky,” Andrew agreed. “I’ve done some reading on Type Threes over the years. They’re fast; much faster than other Types. If you lost her, you’d never get her back.”

“So what do we do?” said Tom. “I still think the car idea is better than anything else we’ve come up with –”

“Half an hour,” said Topher pointedly.

“Gwyn… my friend Gwyn told me to try to find a cellar,” said Hannah, remembering the advice that had seemed so stupid at the time. The eidolons were still fluttering menacingly in her line of vision, but the sky was growing darker, and if she unfocused her eyes, it was almost like she couldn’t see them. “If we drive into town, I wonder if maybe…”

And then suddenly she had it. She felt around in her coat pocket to make sure – and there it was.

“I have a key!” she cried, to herself as much as anyone else. “I forgot to give it back because – well, it doesn’t matter. But Amelia’s store – the Christmas shop in Beringold – it has a _storage room in the basement_ – she told me about it! We could go there – I could try to clear it out –”

For a second everyone was quiet. Then –

“I’ve always wanted to see those Elf on the Shelf things ripped to pieces by a werewolf,” said Tom, grinning. “Let’s go.”


	28. Hannah (II)

Beringold was empty. Every door was shut, every shop was closed, and there wasn’t so much as a dog walker on the hilly streets. Last night, the townspeople had attacked, brazen and battle-crazed. Now, they were hidden away, locked in their houses, fearful of the moon that shone above them.

“It’s at the end of the street,” said Hannah, pointing. “Right there.”

Tom parked, and he and Andrew helped Hannah out of the car. They made to shut the doors, but Harry and Topher clambered out, protesting.

“Are you sure?” said Andrew. “We don’t know how long this is going to take.”

“Give me the car keys, and I’ll keep an eye on the time,” said Topher firmly.

“We’re not staying behind,” said Harry. He kicked the car door shut and walked over to join Hannah’s brothers, his gait slightly uneven. Hannah felt a stab of guilt that she knew she could do nothing to fix.

The Marrock Christmas Market was exactly as it had always been – shabby and unwelcoming on the outside; and warm, pine-scented, and filled with every kind of kitsch imaginable on the inside. Tom examined an ornamental pigeon, looking amused. Andrew elbowed him in the chest and pointed to the back of the store.

“I’ve never been down here before,” said Hannah, leading the way, “but I know it’s where Amelia keeps all her extra stuff when it doesn’t fit in the house. Um, how long do we have?”

She could feel the wolf breathing down her neck, that familiar feeling of _otherness_ creeping up behind her.

“Twelve minutes,” said Harry. “We’ll be okay.”

The door at the back of the room took them down three flights of stairs, which was fine for Tom and Andrew, but took Hannah, Topher, and Harry much longer than it normally would have. Finally, they reached a dusty hallway that smelled strongly of mildew, with chipping paint in a color Hannah couldn’t identify. Two small rooms with dense concrete walls were tucked inside.

Hannah let out a heavy breath. They were perfect.

“Do we like this woman, Hannah?” said Tom, peering into the first storage room. “Only if we don’t, we could leave everything in here…”

“No,” said Hannah, taking a closer look. Thankfully, almost everything was in boxes. “I don’t want to cheat her out of her sales. I’m not sure how much you can haul out of here, though…”

“Well, let’s give it a try,” said Andrew. Working together, he, Andrew, Harry, and Topher managed to move almost everything into the second storage room in a just a few trips. When it was full, Tom, Andrew, and Harry took the last few boxes and began to move them upstairs. Topher lingered.

“Are you going to be okay, Han?” he said slowly. “And I’m not asking because I think you’re not. I think if anyone could be okay after all this, it would be you. I just… I know how much you hate it. Being controlled by the wolf.”

Hannah felt her treacherous eyes tear up again. She had cried enough for one day. She didn’t want to cry again.

But she did, because she couldn’t help it. And Topher’s shoulder was soft, and he let her cry into it. And that dulled the pain in both her chest and her head.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t do it, Topher. I haven’t – it hasn’t happened to me since I was little. Not like this. And I _knew_ it was coming, I knew it was coming all month, but I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to feel it, and now it’s happening, and I can’t, I _can’t_ –”

“You _can_ ,” said Topher. “You’re strong. You’re the strongest person I know. Do you remember how completely pathetic I was the first few weeks I knew you?”

“I was like that too,” Hannah murmured. “I just didn’t want anyone to see.”

“No, you _weren’t,”_ said Topher. “You’ve never been pathetic, Hannah Cobham. You’re scared, and you pretend not to be, and I wish all the time that you’d just admit it, because I’m scared too, and it’s hard being scared by yourself. You don’t trust people easily. You make stupid mistakes, and you tell the worst jokes, and you’re even more of a lightweight than I am. But you’re not pathetic. You’re strong, and you’re brave, and you’re so stubborn it hurts. And you’re going to make it through. Because you’re not the wolf.” He gripped her hand. “You never have been. And you never will be.”

Hannah lifted her head from his shoulder, trying to look at his face, trying to see the lie in it. She couldn’t find it.

“How do you know?”

Topher shrugged. “Because I know you.”

And Hannah kissed him.

She wasn’t scared that he wouldn’t kiss her back, because somehow she knew that he would. His lips were smoother than she’d expected them to be.

“You should go,” she said at last. She didn’t know how long they had, but if he didn’t leave soon, it would be seconds, not minutes.

“Hannah,” he said.

Despite the moon, despite it all, everything in his face was smiling – his eyes, his lips, even his ridiculous eyebrows.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

They kissed once more, and then Topher shut the door behind him.

***

There were three eidolons now. One of them had gone. Hannah didn’t know where or when.

She sat in a corner, huddled and shivering, and the eidolons watched her from above, but she didn’t watch them back. There was something else inside her along with the wolf now. Something sparkling. Something sure.

The moon rose, and Hannah felt it. The wolf snapped its jaws, waiting. Hannah ignored it.

She could do this. Her family was with her, even if they weren’t there in the storeroom. Even if she hadn’t seen them in months. They were always with her – they always had been. Her parents. Her older brothers. Her best friend. Topher.

She would get through it for them.

***

The morning wasn’t fun.

Hannah had long since forgotten what it felt like to wake up with every bone in her body screaming and protesting, and she didn’t particularly want to remember now. She sat up as slowly as she could, trying to figure out how much damage the wolf had done to the storeroom. A lot, by the looks of it. She got herself together as best she could and waited for someone to come down.

Her brothers had managed to move most of Amelia’s wares away, but there had still been a large number of empty boxes lying around when Hannah had transformed, and the wolf had wasted no time in destroying them. A small box of glass baubles had been overlooked, and they had been smashed into shards so fine that they looked like glittering sand.

But she had made it.

She looked down at her body. Bruises had blossomed all over her arms and legs; by the feel of it, she had another fairly large one on her cheek. War wounds.

It could be worse. Still, she didn’t feel good, and the storeroom was cold, and she still had three eidolons with her, which were swirling ominously around the room.

Fortunately, she only had to wait a few minutes before someone came for her. Tom’s voice echoed down the hall. “You awake down there, Han?”

“Yes,” said Hannah, as loudly as she could, which wasn’t very loud at all. But Tom heard her, and he opened the door and came in.

He helped her up, steered her towards the door, and did not comment on the state of the room, despite the fact that he had to step over several smashed baubles in order to make it over. Hannah grimaced at him. He grimaced back.

“I’m sorry, Han,” he said. 

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, and they left the storeroom behind.

She was not pleased about how much he had to support her in order for her to make it up the stairs, but she managed to get through the shop without too much trouble. From the stoop, she could see Topher and Harry through the car window. They waved.

She hoped Topher wouldn’t mind holding her hand on the long ride back. She didn’t think he would.

As Hannah stepped into the sunlight, another of her eidolons detached itself from her and drifted away. It moved like wandering smoke and curled itself high into the chilly January air. Only two remained.

***

Hannah fell asleep within seconds of Andrew starting the car, and she stayed that way until they reached Curnow, where Topher gave her one last hug before heading into his house. Harry did the same, and then they were gone.

“Remember that Mom and Dad have no idea we went to get you,” said Andrew. “I told them Tom and I were with some friends, so this is probably going to be kind of a shock. Do you think you can make it? Or do you want us to go in and tell them first?”

Hannah looked at the familiar front door, at the sloping lawn, at the brick walls hiding her parents and brothers from view. “I can make it.”

They helped her up, one brother holding each hand. Hannah looked at them.

“You’re friends again. When did that happen?”

Tom and Andrew exchanged puzzled glances.

“I don’t know,” said Tom finally. “I guess… over the last couple months. After you – after everything.”

“It was time,” said Andrew simply.

Tom unlocked the door and the three of them walked inside. Hannah’s father was standing at the sink, rinsing off a dish. Her mother was reading the paper at the table. Gulliver and Moe were eating breakfast, poking each other with their cereal spoons.

Hannah took in the sight and felt as though her heart was about to burst.

“Mom?” called Tom. “Dad? I think you should see what we brought back with us.”

Her parents turned. Hannah watched their expressions change as they noticed her – their looks of disbelief, and the soft way that they changed to wonder.

_“Hannah?”_

“Hey,” said Hannah quietly.

And then there were arms around her – careful arms, so as not to hurt her, but her parents’ arms all the same. Her brothers squealed and jumped up. She was surrounded, embraced from all sides –

“Don’t squeeze too hard,” said her mother. “She looks… I don’t think she had any Moon Pills last night.”

“She was a badass,” said Tom, grinning.

Hannah looked at her parents. Her mother was so _small_ – a whole head shorter than Hannah. Had she ever noticed that before? And her father’s hair was graying at the temples, a kind of old anxiety wrinkling the skin around his eyes. Had he always looked like that?

She couldn’t remember.

“Listen,” she said, “I never wanted to –”

“Later,” said her father, shaking his head. He gave her another cautious hug, his eyes on the eidolon above her head—just one now, identical to her mother’s. “You look like you’ve been through enough. For now, we’re going to make you breakfast, and then you’re going to go to bed for as long as we say you are.” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure if what he said next would be welcome. “We’re glad to have you back.”

“I’m glad to be back,” said Hannah.

Her colors returned in an exultant explosion of light.

***

She still had to go to the hospital. She had known that she would. But they let her have two weeks at home first, talking with her parents, spending time with her brothers, reacclimating to life at Trevarthen. She was grateful for this, though she didn’t seem to fit into school the way she used to. She felt as if she had aged and lost ten years at the same time. Still, it was nice to see everyone again. Ella was so excited that she lifted her off the ground.

It took the full two weeks for Hannah’s final eidolon to leave her, and in the weeks following its departure, it occasionally came back and stuck to her for a few hours at a time. But gradually it appeared less and less, and eventually, it stopped coming altogether.

Topher and Harry soon came to visit Hannah, although they only arrived together a small portion of the time. Harry had begun teaching his own photography class, which meant he could only come by in the evenings, and he and Seb had gotten back together, so they often visited as a couple. It was only after a night of giddily tapping out messages in Morse Code – Seb looking on in bemusement – that Hannah fully recognized how much she had missed him.

She had been worried about being alone with Topher at first. She hadn’t seen him for several days, nor had much of a chance to talk to him: there had been a lot of catching up to do with her family, and more to discuss. The time spent apart had made the memory of their cellar kiss seem blurry at the edges – as if it might not have happened unless they soon agreed that it had.

Topher seemed to have been worried, too, because he came for his first solo visit with a wilted bouquet of snowdrops and a deep crinkle in his forehead. Hannah spotted this and immediately decided that she couldn’t be nervous anymore. One person looking like that was enough.

 _“Yo,”_ she said. She walked over to where he stood in the doorframe and took the snowdrops from him. She tucked one into her hair (she’d streaked it with blue hair chalk that morning) and put the rest on the desk in the corner. “Thanks. Didn’t think you were a flowers kind of guy.”

“Yeah,” said Topher. “Well. I just thought –”

Hannah rolled her eyes and dragged him into the room. She would not listen to him stammer like Gwyn. The snowdrop in her hair fell to the floor, but she didn’t pick it up again.

Instead, she kissed him – a longer, sweeter kiss than the one in the Christmas Market cellar – but she only allowed it to last for a few seconds. Then she slapped him hard on the wrist.

“Ow,” said Topher, rubbing it. “What was that for?”

“You looked like you were thinking things were going to be weird,” said Hannah, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “But they’re not. They’re never going to be weird. I won’t let them.”

“You won’t?” said Topher, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re my boyfriend,” said Hannah fiercely. “ _That’s_ not weird. Is it?”

“No,” said Topher. The crinkle in his forehead was very much gone now. Hannah touched the place where it had been.

“Good.”

They stared at each other and laughed. David, who was supposed to be working in his office, bent his head around the door and grinned.

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew it all along.”

There was a part of Hannah that supposed she had, too.

***

A week before the full moon, Hannah was in her hospital room working on her college applications when a knock came at the door.

She put down her pencil and sighed. It had taken her an hour of carefully avoiding Fruit Ninja to get herself to concentrate, and even then, she wasn’t making much headway. She didn’t have a clue which United States president she’d want to bring back from the dead, especially since she doubted any of them would want to contend with the modern age.

“Come in!” she called.

Rose entered the room. Gwyn, carrying his customary travel mug of black coffee, followed. Scarlett trailed a few feet behind, farther away than Hannah had ever seen her.

Hannah leapt up with a cry and ran at him. Then she faltered, remembering what she had said to him at their last meeting. She stopped, waved awkwardly, and watched Gwyn gave the same wave back.

“Sorry,” she said. “About… you know.”

“Don’t be,” said Gwyn.

Hannah had delivered the message he had given her – complete with awkward pauses – to Rose just a few days after arriving home. Rose hadn’t shown any sign that it meant anything to her. She’d simply given Hannah a shrewd look and shook her head.

“I think he misses you,” said Hannah.

“Let him,” said Rose, and she’d left it at that.

But now here they were, the two of them, side-by-side, in Hannah’s hospital room. And as they got closer, Hannah did not miss the way that Gwyn slipped his hand into Rose’s, nor the way that Rose grasped it back – first with hesitation, and then with decisiveness.

“I left Rumon,” Gwyn explained to Hannah. “Just two days after you did. I thought about things for a long time. After Diana… after what you said when you left… you were right, you know. And I was wrong.” He closed his eyes and took a long draught of coffee. “And I belong here.”

“He’s a slow learner,” said Rose, with a sharp glance. Hannah understood that everything wasn’t fully all right between them yet; that this was much more of a beginning than an end. “It takes him twelve years to realize things that the rest of us understand in about twelve minutes.”

“True,” said Gwyn, more than a little bit gravely. “That’s definitely true.”

He told Hannah about what had happened at Rumon after she’d left. It turned out that not everyone agreed with what Diana had done, though discussions on the topic had only taken place in whispers. But there had been a motion to discuss Hannah’s expulsion at the next town meeting. Gwyn didn’t have much faith that this would change things, but he hoped it would.

“Rumon used to be a real place of sanctuary,” he said. “Not when I was there – that was long before my time – but I think it could be again someday. Of course, the really desirable thing would be to turn the whole world into a kind of Rumon. An ideal Rumon, one that nobody would need to run away to. And as long as people are locked up in there, there isn’t anyone trying to accomplish that out here.”

Hannah gave him a long look. He smiled at her.

Then she asked him what had happened to Tory. She had thought about her a lot since returning to Curnow, but she knew there was no possible way of contacting her. Diana would make sure of that.

“She was… she was very upset,” said Gwyn slowly. “I think she saw it as her father leaving all over again. I’d have loved to take her with me, take her to find her father for real – but Amelia would never have allowed it. Amelia will never leave Rumon.”

“What do you think is going to happen to her?” said Hannah. “To Tory, I mean?”

“I think she’ll be okay,” said Gwyn. “She’s brave and determined, and she reads a lot, and I think those things will take her away from Rumon someday. When she’s old enough. When she realizes that there’s more for her out there, past the iron gate. I think you’ll see her again.”

“I think so too,” said Hannah. “But it’ll be a long time, won’t it?”

“Sometimes,” said Gwyn, looking at Rose – Scarlett the eidolon far beyond his line of sight – “the best things take a long time.”

Hannah mulled that over and decided he was right.

***

The full moon rose a week later. Hannah sat in her room, hopeful after a month of new Moon Pills prescribed by Rose and David. If they worked, she would get on with her life as usual, with full moons spent quietly, watching box sets and waiting for the return of her colors. If they didn’t, Rose and David would think of something. A different dosage, maybe. Or nights spent with the door shut, knowing that the wolf’s mind could take over – but also knowing that there were people waiting for her return outside the door.

The thing was, Hannah thought, to a certain extent, Nicolas had told the truth. Hannah couldn’t control the wolf. Not all the time. Not the way that she wanted to. And pretending that she could wasn’t going to make her situation any better.

But that didn’t mean that she had to _be_ the wolf.

Topher was right, too.

Hannah thought for a minute, and then tapped her fingers in Morse Code on the floor. The pattern came so naturally to her that she forgot she hadn’t known it all her life.

H-A-N-N-A-H.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's my girl!
> 
> Thank you so very much for reading and just for following Hannah on her journey; it's been so ridiculously wonderful to have readers. If you liked it, I'd be delighted if you'd leave a comment.


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